


Billy Hargrove Needs A Nap

by lilpeas



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Apologies, Billy Hargrove Redemption, Cuddling & Snuggling, First Time, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mutual Pining, Skin Hunger, Sleep Deprivation, Slow Burn, Touch-Starved, Virgin Billy Hargrove
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2020-06-23 14:17:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 74,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19703089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilpeas/pseuds/lilpeas
Summary: It’s one thing to be a light sleeper in this shitty town that won’t shut up at night, but it’s another thing entirely to fall asleep on Steve Harrington’s shoulder during last period English.[COMPLETE]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flippyspoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/gifts), [tracy7307](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tracy7307/gifts), [lymricks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lymricks/gifts), [ohmybgosh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmybgosh/gifts), [socknonny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/gifts).



> I'm gifting this story (what's written of it, anyways!) to my biggest inspirations in the fandom. I love all your work, and love all the different ways Steve and Billy are captured. Anyways, this is just a small gift to say thank you. If it's not your cup of tea, feel free not to read, but the sentiment of gratitude still stands! ♥️
> 
> Either way, this is a post season 2 soft Billy and shy Steve for anyone that needs it, set before season 3 events! Billy and Steve are 17/18 :)
> 
> I wanted this to be a one-shot fluff expresso, but it ran away with my hands. what can ya do ^.^

Here’s the thing.

Billy Hargrove is a light sleeper.

Living with an abusive father has taught him to wake up at the lightest footfall, the slightest of creaks. Now it’s just a part of his conditioning. It’s habit. More than habit. It's Billy: asshole, athlete, surfer, restless sleeper.

He wakes up before the whole house to do his chores in time for school, so that usually means the ass crack of dawn. And he goes to bed late after cooking dinner, washing the dishes, and squeezing in some of his weights and basketball practise.

So he’s got fuck all time to do _fuck all_.

Being a light sleeper in California wasn’t that much of an issue. Even when it got hot, he’d never have to open the window to the nightlife outside. He’d just crank up the AC and shed a few layers. Life was fucking simple. Even if it was still strict and painful and hard, Billy still _slept_.

Being a light sleeper in Hawkins is totally different.

There’s freaking _noises._ All the time. Motherfucking screeches or some shit, shattering glass and random thuds outside his window. It’s somehow louder than the steady thrum of music and laughter coming from Cali beach. Maybe because it’s so abrupt and unexpected. Or maybe because Billy grew up around the buzzing chaos of California and it’s a part of him now. The beat of bass underneath floorboards as familiar as his own heartbeat.

Either way, Billy doesn’t know what the good little townspeople of Hawkins get up to after dark, but he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to know judging by the fucking racket.

How does nobody question it? Why does no one mention it at school? Does everyone get routinely drugged after nightfall? Nobody is that much of a heavy sleeper. And a whole town? Not fucking likely.

But _nobody's talking about it._

Billy mentions it all casual to Tommy, after he can’t take it any longer. It’s been about a month since he had a proper sleep. 

He says it with an indifferent, “Hey what’s with all the screeching at night? You got nocturnal seagulls or something?”

But Tommy frowns with his whole face. “What? _Screeching?”_

“Yeah.” Billy closes his locker, looks Tommy in the eye. “I can’t get any damn sleep.”

Tommy gives him this guilelessly lost expression, still wearing that dumb smile like he wants to find what Billy is saying funny. “I don’t even know man, I don’t hear screeching. Maybe a cat or something?”

“Yeah.” Billy says, unconvinced. "Sure." He doesn’t think Tommy even understood the question. Billy doubts Tommy actually knows what the word _nocturnal_ means.

How the fuck did Harrington deal with this guy for so long? Not that Billy's obsessed or anything. Not that he thinks Harrington's all that. Just seems like Harrington’s got a little more sense than Tommy.

The only reason he popped into Billy's head is because Billy's got basketball practise and then English with him next. One after the other. Two hours of Steve Harrington.

So that’s sure to be fun as always.

Looking at Harrington’s face still gives him a wrench of guilt like someone's gripped all his insides in a fist and squeezed. Harrington probably doesn’t even think about it at all. Billy’s been chalked up to just another bully and that’s that. Steve Harrington's life will continue up his perfect little path.

Sometimes it’s all Billy can think about. Sometimes when he’s washing the dishes, there’s a swoop low in his gut as if he’s been dropped from a great height, because he can feel the side of the plate he’s holding smack against the side of Harrington’s head.

Because he crumpled like paper. He was down. It was done. The fight was over. And Billy still came back. Still towered over him like —

Billy has to breathe through his nose for a second whenever that happens.

Other times, he wakes in a cold-clammy sweat after beating Harrington’s unresponsive face to a pulp.

The only thing worse than pain exploding across his face is the sensation of someone else’s face breaking underneath his knuckles.

Billy doesn’t, won't, think about what made him do it. Why he exploded like that at Harrington instead of anyone else. He shoves that part down, down, down: stores it away and locks it up tight.

But he’s been good. He’s been – _better_. He doesn’t goad Harrington anymore, even if he does miss the angry flush that bleeds all the way down his chest because of it. He doesn't smirk or smoke in his face or look at him at all.

Billy sometimes thinks about saying sorry. Writing a note or some dumb shit. He talks himself out of it every time.

It’s not as if Harrington cares.

One sorry isn’t going to change his opinion of Billy. It’s not going to change what he did.

So Billy resigns himself to avoiding Harrington as much as humanly possible. That’s what Max asked for. It’s what she wants. _Stay away from me and my friends._

So he does.

The only trouble is, Billy’s cranky. He’s not slept in fucking _forever_ and swears that tears of frustration actually bead at his eyes whenever he falls asleep only to jerk awake at another shriek outside.

So he plays it rough during practise, uses up the last shreds of his energy to batter out his anger and let off some steam. He pummels the other team all the while avoiding Harrington’s eye, all but flees the locker room before he’s tempted to glance over at Harrington’s shower (he always chooses the same shower, it’s not Billy’s fault if he conflates the two, sue him).

It ends up being a mistake.

It’s one thing to be a light sleeper in this shitty town that won’t shut up at night, but it’s another thing entirely to fall asleep on Steve Harrington’s shoulder during last period English.

He doesn’t even _notice_ it happen. That’s how bad this has got.

One minute he’s doodling – because he knows all this shit and he’s read the book front to back – and the next his eyelids are heavy, pulling him down, and it’s too difficult to keep them open.

Billy gives in. He closes them and floats for a moment, hears the class carry on around him. They’re up at the back anyway, so Billy leans on his fist and sleeps. No one will know.

He doesn’t know he’s listing. He doesn’t know he’s moving to the side.

All he knows is that is head is heavy, and his wrist hurts from the pressure, until the weight is suddenly taken off his hand and everything is warm, comfortable, nice.

Billy sighs.

The something warm and nice goes weirdly stiff.

Billy rubs his nose against it, tries to make it soften again. Smells nice. Feels soft.

“Um.”

A voice all too familiar is way too close.

Billy jerks awake.

Steve Harrington is staring at him.

Billy blinks.

Looks at Harrington’s shoulder, his cashmere jumper that Billy’s face has been pressed against seconds ago.

“Jesus fuck.” Billy hisses, a spike of anger more at himself than at Harrington bubbling up inside him. He scrubs a hand over his face. What the fuck is his life becoming?

“You were the one lying on me.” Harrington states.

“Oh well I’m sorry.” Billy snipes on instinct. His mood only sours at that shitty comeback.

Harrington’s brows lift. “Didn’t know you were capable of the word.”

Billy’s whole body flushes in one hot swoop.

The bell rings.

Billy doesn’t stick around to reply. Just grabs his bag and runs.

_Didn’t know you were capable of the word._

So Steve still thinks about it.

Fuck. That’s _not_ how Billy imagined he’d finally say the word to Harrington. And now he looks like even more of an asshole. He can apologise for that, but not for nearly killing him?

Christ, he needs a nap. He needs _sleep_.

Max is already waiting by the Camaro when Billy arrives.

An idea strikes. Billy finds himself biting his thumb before he starts the car.

“Billy?” Max asks.

“Um. Do you need dropped off at the arcade?” He asks.

Max looks instantly suspicious. “Why?”

“Well.” Billy starts. “If I dropped you off, picked you up, and let you – do whatever it is you do there for an hour.” He clears his throat. “Would you tell Neil I was with you?”

Max blinks at him.

“Yeah.” She says.

Billy blinks back. “Y-yeah?”

Max shrugs. “Sure.”

Billy nods. He starts the car. The drive in amiable silence, and Billy thinks about doing it, maybe it’ll be pointless, maybe there’s nothing he can really say –

“Thanks.”

He says it blunt, quick. His voice is rough as gravel. It’s over the sound of music. She might not have heard him. She doesn’t reply.

Only when he parks at the arcade, Max jumps out and pauses before she shuts the door. “It’s cool. And I already do, by the way. Tell Neil you were with me.”

Billy’s throat goes sharply tight. Max is already off, red hair swishing as she skates the three metres to the entrance.

He drives in silence and tries to ignore the itchy prickle of his eyes, clenches his jaw and clutches the wheel. Eventually it fades, the way it always does.

He scans the streets, the long rows of white bricked houses, pristine perfect mansions. There must be one. There’s got to be _one_.

He can’s sleep at home, because the sound of his dad’s footsteps walking three paces into the kitchen makes Billy wake with a start and a disgruntled sigh. He can’t sleep in his car, because he’s done that too many times now and the leather seats just aren’t doing it for him anymore, the stiff and unforgiving rigidity gives him backache for a week, and the blare of a horn or a passing car has him flying three feet in the air.

No. Billy’s decided.

He’s busting into someone’s house and he’s fucking _sleeping_.

It’s the only option left. If he doesn’t nap he’ll go insane. He’ll scream, cry, or both. He's already going insane anyway because he fell asleep on Steve Harrington’s shoulder during class. But that’s – whatever. Maybe Steve didn't even notice. 

Billy parks somewhere along the road, his car partially hidden by trees, and sends a prayer up to any deities that might be listening that his baby isn’t found.

“Please.” Billy presses his hands together, touches the hood of the Camaro, and then he’s off.

Hawkins is a small town. So he’s sure as hell not walking up the front street and busting a window. Everyone knows where everyone lives around here. No doubt he'd get caught.

So he jumps over the fence and goes around the back.

Billy sneaks through the backyards of rich people’s lives, toes around the gigantic swimming pools, the expensive looking maple trees. Billy can hardly believe that just a few blocks away is his shitty street, with wallpaper stained with cigarette smoke and a fridge that can hardly open.

There’s got to be one house that’s empty. There’s got to be some family that work at three in the afternoon whose kids do after school shit.

All Billy needs is an _hour_. And even if he doesn’t wake up after an hour, he’ll wake up to the sounds of people barging in. He’ll skip out the window quicker than anyone can say ‘intruder’. It’s _Hawkins_. Nobody’s going to expect that shit can happen during daylight hours. The most scandalous thing this place has ever seen is probably a missing cat.

And then, just as Billy is losing hope as every house he passes has someone eating, or reading, or living, he sees it.

A house. And it’s totally empty.

There’s nobody inside.

Billy checks from every angle available – which is quite a few, considering the house is enormous and has sliding glass doors going into the backyard.

Still, he knocks on the glass just in case. When nobody answers, he tests the door.

It’s unlocked.

Billy didn’t actually have a plan if it wasn’t. 

His breath leaves him in a rush. Billy steps inside. He toes around the carpet and cranes his neck every which way, illogically worried he’s somehow missed someone.

Still better than sleeping at home. Still better than sleeping in a car.

“Hello!” He calls out, pulse thrumming.

His voice echoes. He waits a beat, two, three.

There’s nobody in.

Billy all but thunders up the stairs, because if it’s five minutes until someone comes home then it’s still five _fucking minutes_. There’s about sixty rooms and he chooses the closest one, dives inside, and takes a glance at the bed before he looks for the windows.

There’s one by the side of the bed. Billy steps up to take a closer look, opens the latch. The fall isn’t too bad. The grass is soft. He’ll be fine.

As soon as Billy slides onto the bed, he melts. His limbs go boneless and soft, and at first he’s on top of the covers before he thinks fuck it and slips inside. Let them think they forgot to make the bed or something. Billy doesn’t care.

_Didn’t know you were capable of the word._

Billy wriggles on the mattress and tries to shake the memory.

Didn’t know you cared. That’s what Harrington meant. _If only you knew_ , Billy thinks in bitter amusement, though whether it's directed at Steve or himself he doesn't know.

Billy turns away from the window, buries his face in the pillow and concentrates on sleep. He freaking needs sleep.

It’s quiet in Hawkins during the day, and the house he’s chosen is silent and still. Billy feels himself drift down, deeper and deeper. A warning goes off in his head, a _what if you don’t wake up in time_ , but he ignores it.

It’s time to sleep. It’s time for sleeping. Nothing else matters.

He’s asleep within minutes.

It literally feels like seconds before Billy wakes up again.

He rouses, groggy, and moans as he stretches from the best (quickest) nap he’s ever had in his life.

Then he blinks. Frowns. It’s dark. How is it dark? _Shitshitshit –_

“What the fuck are you doing in my house?” Steve Harrington asks.

Billy yelps and scrambles around.

Steve Harrington is currently blocking the light from the window as he stands over Billy, a bat in both his hands and – is that _nails?_ Drilled into the bat? Midwesterners really take home security _too fucking far._

“Jesus, get that thing away from me!” Billy shouts, shuffles back up the bed away from it. “Kill someone with that shit!”

“You still haven’t answered my question.” Steve says calmly. He’s very calm for someone wielding a spiked bat.

“I – you – I didn’t – fuck.” Billy’s still groggy, his head all sluggish and slow as his words trip and fall out. “I’m too tired for this shit.” Billy rubs a hand over his face. He’s too tired to come up with a _lie_.

“Okay, fine.” Billy sighs, hates how vulnerable he is like this, how fucking weak he looks. “ _Christ_ , Steve." He tries to add some venom to his voice before he admits, "It’s kinda hard to sleep at home right now. I was just gonna nap at someone’s place for an hour. This was the only empty house. I didn’t know it was yours.” _Or I wouldn’t have come_ , Billy thinks.

The bat lowers, slightly. And then it drops to the floor.

“Right.” Steve relaxes. It’s just then that Billy notices the tension Steve had been holding in the length of this shoulders. It falls away for a second, and then it’s back up.

“Why is it hard for you to sleep at your house?” He asks, terse.

“Cause – fucking – _bats_ or something!” Billy finally explodes, because he’s done with this shit. “I don’t know! Hawkins gets crazy freaky at night, and the _noises_ –”

“What?” Steve says.

Billy feels the flush all the way up to his ears and down his throat, but he’s not stopping now. “There are noises at night, alright, and deny it all you want but I can hear it outside my window, this fucking shrieking and banging, and I can’t sleep! I haven’t slept in like a _month!”_

Steve stands there, arms slack, mouth open, and then he starts … laughing.

He just starts _laughing_ , low and deep and so different to how Billy imagined Steve would laugh, in the rare moments when Billy let himself imagine Steve laughing, how he would laugh, what he would laugh at. What he would look like laughing.

Billy isn’t in the mood for it, though. Not if Steve's just fucking with him.

He throws the sheets back – shirt crumpled, hair a mess, but fuck it. Just fuck it. “Whatever. Think I’m crazy if you want.”

He’s only just stood up and turned to go before Steve grabs him by the forearm.

“Hey.” Steve’s expression is sombre, serious. “I didn’t say you were crazy. You’re not crazy.”

Billy gives Steve a blank, bored look. “Right.” He shakes Steve’s grip off. 

“No, I’m serious.” Steve blinks with those wide amber eyes, and Billy turns to putty and mush. He’s in the palm of Steve’s hand.

“I was just laughing because – you’re the first person to say it.” Steve explains. “The first and last person I’d expect.” He huffs, shakes his head with a grin, and then it’s gone and he stares at Billy. “But you’re not crazy.”

Billy waits, just to make sure Steve isn’t yanking his chain, and then he exhales in a gust. “So what the fuck is it then?”

“Beats me.” Steve grins, wide and open and _true_. Billy can’t look directly at it. “Nobody knows what the fuck it is. But it’s driving me insane man. I can’t sleep either.”

Billy gives him an incredulous look and flops back down on the bed. “You can’t _sleep?_ With this kinda royal treatment? Should try my bed, amigo.”

Steve’s eyebrows tick, a little colour rising high in his cheeks. Billy realises the double meaning in his words and flushes right back.

“Nah, it’s just – the noise. At night.” Steve flutters a hand around, voice stuttering. “Plus my parents are out of town like every week. It gets real quiet here.”

Billy lights up at that. “They’re out of town that much? Man, I can’t imagine how good that would be.” He sighs in bliss and spreads his arms on top of the bed, imagining having a whole house belong to him that often. He barely even remembers to put on the douche-bag act as he fantasies.

“It’s not as good as it sounds.” Steve’s voice goes bitter. “My dad is a grade A asshole.”

“Oh yeah?” Billy sits up on his elbows. He studies Steve for a beat, watches his face. “Can’t get much worse than mine, bein' honest.”

It’s an understatement at the very least. Billy hopes Steve lets it drop while also desperately hoping that Steve catches on, that he asks about it, that he _wants_ to know.

Steve studies him back. And then he says, “Why’d you call me Steve?”

Billy freezes. For one terrifying second he thinks Steve – _Harrington_ – can read minds. “Huh?”

“Just there.” Steve – fuck, _Harrington _– waves a hand. “When I asked you why you were here. You said, ‘the truth is, Steve’. You never use my name.”

Billy gapes. “Wh – I’m fucking tired dude. Do you prefer Harrington or somethin’?” He clenches his jaw. “Only let the teachers and perfect little Wheeler call you Steve?” Something hot and sharp twists in his gut. “Everyone else below that?” He feels himself slip into his familiar routine, slip into his second skin, his old mask.

Steve’s head tilts, a confused puppy. It’s unrelentingly cute.

“No?” Steve says. “I never asked you to call me Harrington. Or anyone to call me that. I was just surprised when you called me Steve.”

“Well I’ll stop, a’ight, so don’t sweat it.” Billy snipes and sits up properly now, straightening his shirt.

Steve shrugs and picks up the bat. “Whatever. I prefer Steve, but it’s up to you.”

Billy swallows, hesitates for a second.

He’s giving Billy the option. _Up to you_. It’s probably small, it’s probably nothing to Steve. But to Billy it’s something. It’s a whole lot of something to Billy.

This is the longest, non-aggressive conversation he’s ever had with Steve Harrington. This is his chance. He could say it now. He could just _say it._

Steve raises his eyebrows the longer Billy doesn’t reply.

Billy huffs and shrugs. “Cool. Well I’m going.”

“You don’t have to.” Steve says, and swings his bat in a circle.

Billy stops. “Huh?” His voice comes out soft and surprised, like a winded punch. It annoys the fuck out of Billy, and he straightens his shoulders and glares.

Steve still has a little bit of colour in his cheeks. It’s hard to look him directly in the eye, but Billy still tries. “You can sleep. If you want. If you’re tired.”

Billy’s eyes pop. “Shit, what’s the time?”

Steve frowns, throws up his watch. “Half three. Why?”

Billy sags. “I still got half an hour.” He breathes easy, and then stuffs hands in his pockets and sways. “Uh. I’ll just take a walk. It’s fine.”

“It’s cool.” Steve waves him off. “Stay. I’ll wake you up. Four, right?”

Billy swallows. For lack of anything better to do, he nods.

“Cool.” Steve says. And then he swings the bat and walks out.

What the fuck just happened?

Did Steve Harrington just agree to let Billy nap in his house? Did they just have a conversation?

Fuck, post-nap Billy has got it going on. He’s got his shit _together._

“Fuck yes.” Billy fist-pumps the air as if he’s just netted a ball.

“I was just wondering –”

Steve stops dead at the doorway.

Billy was mid fist-pump.

“Uh. If you want food?” Steve’s face is definitely flushed. He definitely saw.

It takes a beat for Billy to reply.

“I mean.” Billy's voice comes out rough. Just then, at the mere thought of food, Billy’s stomach gives a rumble that deafens in the silence.

Steve’s mouth ticks. “Is that? Yes?”

Billy feels exposed and he so smirks, tosses his head a little. “Sure, if you’re offering. You got maids or something Harrington? They serve it up on a silver platter?”

Steve’s jaw ticks, the workings of a smile disappearing on his face. “No. Cool. It’s downstairs. Take whatever you want.” He’s already walking away.

Billy swallows, guilt burning a hole away in his throat. He’d meant it to sound charming and funny. Instead it just sounded bitter and sarcastic. It just always comes out _mean_.

He steps out the bedroom quietly, sees Steve’s back retreat down the stairs.

After a hesitant beat, Billy follows.

He hadn’t actually appreciated the house when he came in at first. Now, with a fresh set of eyes, it really is magnificent.

_It’s not as good as it sounds._

Billy watches the tense line of Steve’s shoulders as he make his way into the kitchen. Steve turns around then, so Billy averts his gaze to the food so he’s not caught staring.

“Just take whatever you want.” Steve says, gesturing to the cupboards and the fridge.

Billy’s not been told that since he was seven at a birthday party. It feels surreal, for some reason. He’s done drugs. He’s beaten people up. And now he’s being invited into someone’s kitchen like he’s seven years old again.

Still, Billy makes his way into the kitchen slowly, hands behind his back as if scared to touch anything. Nervous jitters spasm in his stomach, and then Billy really does that feel that seven year old with the bad haircut and the wide smile.

Steve watches, silent, still, clearly _waiting_ for Billy to do something.

Billy searches for something quick and easy to grab.

A fruit bowel. Perfect.

He throws a hand in without looking and picks up a tomato.

Steve watches. His mouth ticks again. “A tomato?”

“What?” Billy challenges, hot under the collar. “Tomatoes are good for you.” He can’t loose face. Billy takes a bite, but tomatoes are tricky as shit because of all the juice. If it goes all over him then it goes all over him. He'll live.

It doesn’t go all over him. It tastes fucking amazing. An involuntary noise that’s _not_ a moan escapes, and Billy pulls back, wide-eyed as he chews. “The shit? This is _good_. Where did you get these?”

“I didn’t.” Steve says, staring at him. “Mom buys the groceries.”

“The hell.” Billy looks down at the tomato. It’s ripe and fresh, somehow sweet. Billy didn’t even think tomatoes were _meant_ to be sweet. He eats the rest in two bites, and grabs another until he realises Steve hasn’t moved.

Billy looks up.

Steve is just – staring at him. He’s leaning against the counter, both arms behind him, and his gaze is focused on Billy.

“Are you gonna eat?” Billy asks.

Steve blinks, then more colour rises to his face. Billy isn’t even trying to make him flush right now.

But maybe he flushes when he’s uncomfortable as well as angry. Maybe it’s this whole situation: Billy in his house, acting as if they’re somehow friends, eating his mom’s tomatoes and chatting away.

Because Billy was the one broke into Steve’s house. Steve’s just being nice. This is the Ivy League Posh Boy Treatment. His parents probably trained him since diapers to be nice to guests.

Fuck, and Billy was _falling_ for it.

Billy makes a motion to the door with the tomato, feeling foolish, small. “Uh. I should probably –”

Steve frowns. “It’s not even been five minutes.”

Billy blows out a sigh from his nose, anger simmering close and ready. “Look, I got places to be – ”

“After breaking into my house?” Steve asks, and he sounds amused. He sounds like he’s mocking Billy.

“Christ, Harrington!” Billy shouts, because he’s exposed, he’s _seen_.

“Jesus, are you allergic to nice?” Harrington shouts back, just as riled all of a sudden. “Is screaming your version of hives or something?”

“I just don’t get it!” Billy cries. He's zero to one hundred real fucking fast, he's the light flipped and everything is _on._ “I don’t get why you’re being nice! Why are you being nice? Why are you giving me this?” He waves the tomato in the air.

“I don’t know!” Harrington runs a hand through his hair. “You seemed fucking tired and hungry so I thought –”

Billy cackles a hard, harsh laugh. Pity. He feels sorry for Billy. That’s even worse than civility. “You know what Harrington? Fuck you.”

It’s not his best, but Billy still relishes in the flash of Harrington’s eyes, the brief flicker of some kind of emotion – anger, hurt, whatever, it’s _something_.

Billy storms out, and he’s halfway down the road when he realises he’s still got the tomato in his hand. Billy’s tempted to just throw it down the street, but he’s hungry all the same and so he shoves it in and chews forcefully.

When he gets in the Camaro, he gives the wheel a few slaps, palms open and pain sparking when they connect with the hard leather. And _fuck_ , why does Harrington always do this to him? Why does his blood always feel as hot as the rising sun inside his skin?

Billy forces himself to take a few slow inhales before he starts driving.

Max isn’t ready, so Billy sits on the hood and smokes for about fifteen minutes. By then, the bright venomous anger has turned into a hard little stone inside his stomach. His leg jiggles as he taps away ash with trembling fingers. He wonders what would've happened if he’d apologised. If things would have gone different. And it’s fucking _cold_. His breath blows out in mist. He’s shaking by the time Max bounces out.

She catches sight of his face and slows.

“Hey.” Billy tries for friendly and just falls flat on his face.

Max doesn’t reply. She slides into the passenger side.

“Are you okay?” She asks, halfway home.

“M’ fine.” Billy says, and cracks a smile over to her.

“Really?”

“Max I’m –” Billy starts sharp, but he reels it in: pauses for a minute. “Fine.”

Max doesn’t seem convinced.

“Just a rough night.” Billy offers.

Max looks at him, eyes wide and waiting. But Billy can’t offer any more than that.

*

The next day, there’s a note in his locker.

Billy stands and just holds it, fingers the torn edges and feels the rough paper between his thumb and fingertip. It’s folded in half, no name on top, but from the first glance inside Billy knows it's Harrington. He knows the handwriting.

This must be the, _don’t break into my house again_ note. Or maybe it’s one better, maybe it’s finally the _stay away from us_ note.

Billy opens it.

_Hey._

_House is free until 5._

_Reminder: tomatoes are good for you._

Billy feels warmth suffuse his whole body. He huffs a laugh when he gets to the end, and then quickly stifles it and looks around to see if anyone noticed.

Here’s the deal: Billy slept like _shit_ last night. He tossed and turned and thought. The noises weren’t even as bad, but Billy’s knows that’s not the real reason he couldn’t fall asleep.

The reason is Steve Harrington. Always, forever, fucking Steve Harrington.

He couldn’t sleep because he kept turning the words in the kitchen over and over in his head, twisting and mangling them into something they weren’t.

And now he’s got a note. And clearly he did twist everything into something it wasn’t. Because Steve gave him a note. An invitation. And – tomatoes.

Billy knows where Steve’s locker is. He’s known ever since he stepped foot in Hawkins.

The trouble is figuring out what to say.

Billy reads, he gets good grades, he’s smart. But the hardest part about it is figuring out how to be genuine. How to _sound_ genuine, not too short and brief, not too long and contrived. He needs the perfect balance.

Steve’s given him this olive branch, hasn’t asked for anything in return, but Billy wants to apologise. He always wants to apologise. He wants to say sorry every time he sees Steve. He wants Steve to know he’s sorry for what he did and that it eats at him most days and that it wasn’t okay. Most of all, he wants Steve to know that Billy knows that it’s _not okay._

He’s not like that. He doesn’t do that. That’s not him.

Billy’s fingers tremble the way the did last night. He hovers the pen over the page.

So far he’s got.

_Sorry about everything. Thanks._

_I’m sorry about the fight. Thank you._

_Sorry. Thanks. And I’ll keep that in mind._

_Cool. Sounds good. And sorry._

_Tomatoes._

Billy taps his pen against his mouth. But what about the tomatoes? Its need to be funny, sweet, charming – all the things Steve is. All the things Billy can’t be.

He didn’t even _sound_ sweet when he said it. He sounded challenging and like an asshole, once again. Fuck. Billy tugs at his hair, reluctant to really mess it up in school where people can see it. He needs to come up with something good. Something that’ll make Steve smile. That’ll make butterflies fill up his stomach and his chest glow with heat.

Who’s Billy kidding – in what universe would that happen?

_Thanks. And sorry. About everything._

_Reminder: I know._

It’s not perfect, but it’s as good as he’ll get.

He stuffs it in Steve’s locker on the way to class and bounces his leg the whole way through Biology.

When the bell rings Billy all but sprints out, strides across the hall, fumbles a little before he manages to swing his locker door open.   
  
There’s no note. No reply.

In all fairness, it’s only been one class. And maybe Steve hasn’t had a chance to check his own locker. Maybe he’s not even read Billy’s note yet.  
  
Plus it’s not really a note that needs a reply. Steve’s note didn’t even need a reply. Billy just wanted to say something back.   
  
And for some reason Billy wants something back as well. He wants to know that Steve saw, that Steve understands. He wants to know that before he goes over to Steve’s house for a nap, Steve is okay with him and his apology. His shitty, one sentence sorry.  
  
Because to go over there and wake up and have to address the note in front of Steve, to have to keep his face neutral and his posture all open and relaxed, easy and smooth as butter when inside he’s quaking up a storm, is not something Billy wants to do when he’s post-nap and barely has his hair in order, never mind his life.  
  
He hangs about smoking by the parking lot just for an excuse to delay the inevitable, just to increase the chances that Steve has seen the note and might come outside and spot him here.

Post-smoke Billy is a lot more put together, in his mind. He’s an ass, but at least he can keep a straight face.  
  
After a while though, Billy can’t ignore the tiredness behind his eyes any longer, the grogginess filling up his limbs like a fog.   
  
Max bounces into the Camaro when the final bell rings. Billy stubs his cigarette out with the toe of his boot and joins her.  
  
He opens his mouth.   
  
“Arcade?” She asks.  
  
Billy gives her a nod, a smile that he hopes doesn’t look like a mangled creature on his face.   
  
“I’ll pick you up in an hour.” Billy says as he parks.  
  
Max gets out as usual. But as she shuts the door, she pats it and leans into the open window. “I know.”  
  
And then she’s off.  
  
Billy drives away with something like a smile.  
  
He steps into Steve’s house the same way as yesterday, quiet across the lawn, tiptoeing through the sliding back-doors.   
  
He shouldn’t have worried that Steve was lying.  
  
The house is as empty as before.   
  
Everything seems to sit so quiet, so still. As though it’s all been encased inside a photograph. The sofa, the TV, the coffee table. As though they’ve never been moved, never been touched. A snapshot photograph of a perfect house. Or a perfect life.   
  
For Billy, it’s bliss. It’s heaven on Earth. It’s all his for a few hours and nobody is here to tell him what to do, to ask him what he’s doing, why he’s doing it, to fucking _control_ him.  
  
But for a second, for a brief moment, he can finally see why coming home to this everyday might not be paradise. Why, to someone who’s never been told what to do and how to do it, this freedom might not feel like freedom at all.   
  
It might just feel ... lonely.   
  
And now Billy wonders if that’s what he’s seen haunting Steve Harrington’s eyes for the past few months. He wonders if that’s what he saw when Steve Harrington pulled down his aviators to assess Billy up close, expression indifferent and almost — tired. If that’s why Steve hangs around with a bunch of kids after effectively being kicked out his own social circle. If that’s why he’s letting Billy use his house in the first place.  
  
Loneliness.   
  
Steve Harrington is lonely.   
  
This sudden realisation, while Billy stands in Steve’s house and stares at all his things, makes something sour lie down on his chest.   
  
Billy creeps upstairs, but on his way he notices the photo frames lined along the wall, neat and tidy. He finally looks.

Steve’s parents are prim and pristine, hard-mouthed smiles and stiff upper lip. He sees Steve inbetween them, their hands on his shoulders. Young-faced and wide-eyed grins turning into curled shoulders and uncomfortable smiles.   
  
He wonders what Steve’s parents actually do, why they’re away so often. He wonders if they know what it’s doing to Steve. Maybe a normal person wouldn’t have noticed.   
  
But Billy noticed.   
  
He inspects every room in his search until he’s at the last one, and as soon as the door opens Billy knows it’s Steve’s.  
  
The walls are plain white, the bed plain blue. There’s a desk against the window, a stack of books on top. A pair of jeans folded over a chair. It’s so _Steve Harrington_ that Billy is already inside before he spots the photos. The _other_ photos.

Steve’s photos, clearly.  
  
They’re sloppily stuck around the edges of a wall length mirror: Steve and Nancy with arms around each other smiling. Nancy covering her face beside a Christmas tree. The kids doing various poses and funny faces. Max among them, two fingers up and an _I’m-too-cool-for-this_ look that Billy himself has perfected in front of the mirror.   
  
His heart gives a random clench at that. A weird ultra-beat that feels off inside his rib-cage. Billy doesn’t even know what to call that emotion. A mixture of pride and pain.   
  
Steve among the kids. Steve with one of them on his shoulders, the kid held on by Steve’s hand on their knee. Another one wrapped up in his arms and squirming for escape. Jesus, Billy really wishes he knew their names. He spots Lucas in a few places, and Billy’s all too familiar with the spasm of guilt under his rib there.   
  
There’s some newer ones, which Billy can tell because Steve got a haircut recently and he’s sporting it in these photos. He’s got one arm around Nancy and the other around Jonathan, grin wide and maybe a little drunk. Pulling a silly face beside a totally unimpressed Hopper. Wearing Hopper’s hat, eyes half-lidded, drunk and so fucking _sexy_ while a hand reaches for the hat out of frame.  
  
And that’s them.   
  
Billy feels full, light.   
  
He realises what Steve is trying to do with them. What he’s trying to say. These are what photos _should_ be, moments captured to preserve them forever. Not just a photograph for the sake of obligation, still life preserves that are plastic and untrue.   
  
There’s just something so unrepentantly _true_ about Steve Harrington’s photos.  
  
Billy inspects the drawers, sifts through Steve’s briefs and socks and finds the porn magazines easily. A part of him sinks when he sees them. It’s the same issue Billy has, but Billy puts his in his top drawer because he’s hiding and he knows Neil will find them there. Steve puts his in the top drawer because he’s — _not_.  
  
He flicks through, searches for any dog-eared parts, any pages that seem rougher than the rest. They all feel glossy and smooth. The part of him that sunk suddenly feels a spike of irrational glee. Steve might be straight, but there’s nobody in the magazine that seems to have caught his eye.   
  
And god, Billy is pathetic. Even inside his own head he sounds like a loser. Who the fuck thinks that? It’s not as if it makes _Billy’s_ chances any better.   
  
He runs his hand along Steve’s clothes in his wardrobe, fingers through the books on Steve’s desk and takes note of some he’s not read. Sits down on Steve’s bed to test the mattress. Lifts the pillow to his face and smells something so indescribably _Steve Harrington_ that his eyes close. He kicks his boots off and lies down. The familiar scent of Steve’s stale sweat mingled with the softer smell of what must be his clothes, his detergent, his face wash, is dizzying. From one minute to the next Billy is asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished season 3. Now I have all the feels and this is the only way I know how to deal. 
> 
> FYI, this Billy is a lot softer than canon-Billy and I know that. I'd love to write Billy's unhinged, crazy nature, but I don't think it suits this particular story.

It's the best sleep he’s had to date. The best sleep of his whole _life_.   
  
This is Billy counting California, long summer nights and lazy lie-ins, carefree times he went to bed and wasn’t scared or angry or _something _to wake up the next day.  
  
Instead Billy wakes slowly, softly. Surfacing from waves. Floating up through warm water to the top.   
  
His eyes flutter, heavy with residual sleep. He pulls them open. Everything is hazy. Billy stretches, sighs, and lies there for a moment.  
  
Until he realises someone else is in the room.  
  
Billy goes taut as a rubber band, snaps upright in a second.  
  
Steve Harrington is holding a t-shirt and a pair of shorts in his hand, staring at Billy.  
  
“The fuck.” Billy barks, even though he feels the tension melt from him.  
  
“Sorry I was – I tried to be quiet.” Steve says, unsure. “But … you’re in my room.”  
  
“Yeah I –” Billy snaps, until he realises he can’t end that sentence in any way that isn’t incriminating. “I realised that, but I just –” Billy fumbles, searches for a lie, searches for something good: something believable, aloof, nonchalant. __

__“It’s okay.” Steve cuts him off.  
_ _

__Billy blinks. His mouth is open, mid-sentence. “Huh?”  
  
Steve waves a hand. “It’s fine. I don’t mind. I said you could use the house.”  
  
He doesn’t want an explanation. He doesn’t want a reason. He doesn’t want to know if Billy snooped around in his room or searched through his things or stole some of his expensive shit.   
  
He doesn’t even want to know why Billy chose here in the first place.  
  
He’s just … _giving_ it to Billy. No questions asked.  
  
Billy knows what he’d do if he found someone sleeping in his room. Probably throw a fit. And here’s Steve Harrington, holding his own clothes in his hand, the drawer opened just slightly because he was trying to be quiet.   
  
Because he’s letting Billy sleep here after school.  
  
Billy doesn’t know what to do with that kindness. How to take it, how to hold it in his hands and not break it apart. He just stares, waits for the other shoe, the fist, the _something_.  
  
Steve tries for a smile. It’s a little more like a cringe.  
  
Billy looks down at the floor. “Right.” His voice comes out small. It sounds sleep-roughened, tired and confused. As though everything he’s feeling just bleeds right on out of his mouth.  
  
Billy curls his fists and resists the urge to change it, to straighten his shoulders and play the aggressive dick.   
  
He wants to give Steve this. He wants Steve to see this.  
  
“You wanna keep sleeping?” Steve asks after Billy doesn’t say anything else. “It’s only like, half three. Again.”  
  
Billy recognises a sudden pattern. He looks up, frowns. “How come you get home after school like half an hour late?”  
  
“Dropping the kids off.” Steve huffs, blows his bangs out his face. “There’s a lot of ‘em.”  
  
Billy feels his frown deepen. “Right, but … don’t they all have bikes or somethin’?”   
  
Not that he’s watched them or anything. Not that he’s all up on Max’s friends. He’s observant. He takes notes.   
  
“To cycle home at night when they’ve done all their after school shit?” Steve asks, incredulous. His hand tightens on the clothes. “If it was up to them they’d never leave the damn place! Nuh-uh. I don’t think so mister.” Steve waggles a finger. Literally waggles it in Billy’s face. “You heard about Will, right?”  
  
Billy blinks in surprise. “Uh, yeah. He went missing, right?”_ _

____

“Exactly.” Steve waves his free hand. “They’re dumb. And their parents work during the day. I told them, you do that extracurricular crap on your own time. Lunch, break, whatever. But that bell rings and you’re going home.”  
  
Billy watches Steve honest to god put his hands on his hips during the rant. Once he’s done, he exhales a breath and blinks at Billy.  
  
“What?”  
  
Billy laughs. It’s a startled sound, more of a cough than anything. “Nothin’. You just – you sound like a dad or something.”

____

A good dad. A great dad.  
  
Steve flushes even as he grins, rolls his eyes. “Well. Not the first time I’ve heard that, I can assure you.”  
  
“You’d make a good dad.”  
  
Billy doesn’t know why he says it. He says it laughing, casually, like it’s any old thing. Just some throwaway comment.  
  
But it slips out of his mouth unawares, a stray thought that popped into his head and for some reason escaped.  
  
Nothing escapes. Not ever. Even when it takes everything to keep it inside.  
  
Billy’s eyes widen as he stares at Steve.  
  
Steve is beetroot.  
  
“I mean –” Billy starts.  
  
“Thanks.” Steve blurts, sudden and quick. “I kinda – I’d like – you know, sometimes I think –” He babbles, until he snaps his mouth shut. He inhales sharply. “Thanks.”  
  
Billy nods shortly.  
  
“I’ll let you – you know. Sleep.” Steve waves his clothes again and nearly trips on his way out.  
  
“Uh.” Billy starts, and stands up so quick he gets a little dizzy.  
  
Steve stops at the doorway.  
  
“I’m not all that tired.” Billy says. Clears his thought. Kicks the toe of his boot into the carpet. “Anymore.” He itches his nose just for an excuse not to look at Steve.  
  
Steve tilts his head. “Okay.”  
  
“Uh.” _Fuck,_ Billy hates asking for shit. “You got any more of those tomatoes?” He tries, aims for funny and casual. It’s only half successful. The other half is just plain pathetic.  
  
Still, Steve beams like a bright ray of Californian sun. “Aw, sure! I bought more.” And then he’s bounding off.  
  
Billy stands in the middle of his room for a moment. “You bought … _more?”_  
  
He follows Steve down the stairs and finds him in the kitchen, rustling around with. Yeah. Packets of tomatoes.  
  
Billy didn’t even know they _came_ in packets. Doesn’t everyone just hand pick them at the grocery store?  
  
“Ever tried a cherry tomato?” Steve turns with a bag opened at the top.  
  
“A what?” Billy feels his face convulse, until he sees the packet in Steve’s hand of truly tiny looking tomatoes. Infant tomatoes.  
  
“No way.” He reaches inside and picks one out, holds it up. “I never seen a baby one before.”  
  
Steve doesn’t reply for a second.  
  
When Billy looks from the tiny tomato to his face, he finds an expression he’s never seen before directed at him. Steve’s eyes are warm, head titled to the side a little, watching Billy. Just watching Billy. He’s not doing anything different, but for some reason it feels different. It somehow reminds Billy of his mother.  
  
“What?” Billy bristles, doesn’t know what he’s doing to receive that look, doesn’t know what it’s making him feel. He doesn’t know if it’s vulnerable or something else, not weak just … fragile.  
  
“Nothing.” Steve shakes his head and it’s gone. He nods to the tomato. “Try it.”  
  
Billy pops it in his mouth. And then his eyes pop open.  
  
“Where the hell you get these?” He explodes as Steve laughs, all loud and open. “You put heroin in them or somethin’?”  
  
Steve shakes his head, still laughing, and Billy finds himself joining in: finds the laughter start inside his chest instead of just across his face, finds it force his mouth open wide yet in a way that feels so damn _good_ Billy doesn’t even think to stop it.  
  
They stand there in the kitchen laughing for some stupid amount of time, and it’s the best time Billy can remember having.  
  
When it dies away, and they’re left smiling at each other in quiet silence, it somehow doesn’t turn awkward or weird. It feels natural. It feels _right_.  
  
“You want a sandwich?” Steve turns away, starts pulling stuff from his fridge, butter spread and loafs and shit.  
  
Billy gets that weird swoopy feeling again, because he doesn’t – he doesn’t _deserve_ this, he doesn’t know why Steve is doing this for him, acting all nice and like. Like it didn’t happen, like nothing even _happened._  
  
“Steve.” Billy starts.  
  
He doesn’t even know what he’s about to say. He doesn’t have anything rehearsed, planned. He just knows he needs to say _something_.  
  
Steve turns around, brown eyes open, waiting.  
  
“I. Did you get the note?” Billy stutters out, clenches his jaw and looks to the side for something to do. For something to look at other than Steve.  
  
“Yeah. I did. It’s cool.” Steve smiles, soft and genuine. “I got it.”  
  
But he doesn’t get it, not really, not fucking _at all_ – because he’s just acting all casual and making Billy a sandwich and it’s not cool. It’s never been cool, nothing about it is cool: what Billy did, what he’s done.  
  
“Steve –” Billy starts, frustrated.  
  
“Billy it’s fine –”  
  
“No, Steve it’s not!” Billy explodes, throwing his hands up, but he regains his breathing and balls them into fists. “Look.” He starts, stares Steve dead in the eye. “It wasn’t cool. And –”  
  
“Billy relax, it was just an argument.” Steve is frowning as if he doesn’t understand, he’s got no clue what Billy could be on about. “We do it all the time, remember?”  
  
“Not yesterday!” Billy shouts. “I don’t mean yesterday! Fuck, the _fight_ , I’m talking about the fight! It wasn’t cool. It – ”   
  
It more than just ‘wasn’t cool’, it was wrong, it –  
  
“It was fucked up Steve.” Billy manages to say at last. He takes a breath. “I never said it, but it really. It really wasn’t okay.”  
  
Steve stares. “Okay.” He says, slowly.  
  
Christ, when is Harrington going to _get it?_ Does Billy need to spell it out?  
  
“I’m sorry.” Billy forces. “I – I’m sorry. For what I did. That night.”  
  
There. It’s done.  
  
Billy keeps his eyes on the floor. It feels as if he’s being skinned alive, fucking _flayed open_. Steve doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and Billy won’t look, he will not look.  
  
He looks.  
  
Steve is holding the bread. Just holding it. His mouth is closed, for once, but he looks right back at Billy with something inscrutable on his face.  
  
Billy doesn’t say anything. Can’t say anything. He’s not wearing any other expression than the one his face wants to. Than the one he’s feeling.  
  
He hasn’t done that around anyone in a long time, but he hopes maybe it shows Steve. He hopes it’s all over his face: his sorry, his guilt, his shame.  
  
“Billy.” Steve begins. And then he sets the bread down, takes a step closer to Billy. “Really, it’s okay.”  
  
Billy feels as if he could scream and he opens his mouth with an exasperated gust of air –  
  
“No, really. I mean it.” Steve says, earnest. He swallows and the movement is somehow palpable, visible in the mid-afternoon light. It’s as though Billy can feel it.  
  
“Before you came into town, I was kind of a douche-bag.” Steve starts.  
  
Billy huffs. “King Steve. Yeah, I’ve heard the stories.”  
  
“No.” Steve says, his eyes flitting all over Billy’s face, suddenly impatient, rushed. “No, not those stories, look – I was. I was _shit_. I did shit things. I bullied people, I made fun of them. I picked fights. I shoved people around cause I wanted to.”  
  
Billy’s throat feels tight, constricted. He stares at Steve and feels as if he’s seeing something new.  
  
Steve runs his hands though his hair, as if trying to sort through his thoughts. He stops and looks straight at Billy. “You know Jonathan Byers?”  
  
Billy nods.  
  
“Yeah. I broke his camera. I mean, he did have pictures of Nancy on it that – weren’t okay. But I broke it, and I knew he couldn’t afford another one and I. I didn’t even care. I was just so fucking _angry_. I was jealous. Alright, I was jealous of him. I knew Nance liked him, and then I saw them together, you know? I saw them. So we – me and Tommy, we.”  
  
Steve swallows again, looks down to the floor. Billy can’t look away from him.  
  
“We went to the movie theatre and … I was talking shit, about how she’s slut, and he was already spray painting before I noticed it but – fuck, it doesn’t matter.” Steve shakes his head all of a sudden, his hair in disarray, his eyes wide. “It _doesn’t matter_. I still did it. And then I said things to Jonathan. Bad things. The worst fucking things. I said Will – I said he deserved it, what happened. Christ, I mean I love that kid!” Steve’s eyes are wild. “I fucking love him, he’s the coolest, and I. I wanted to puke but I just kept going, on and on and _on_ , and Jonathan.” Steve takes a breath. “He just lost it. He beat me up. Two police officers had to pull him off. He wouldn’t quit.”  
  
Billy stares, dumbstruck. He hasn’t heard this story.  
  
“Those two people, right.” Steve points off to the side. “I love them.” He just says it. Plain and simple. “Yeah, they’re fucking annoying and way too lovey-dovey with each other and they hurt me. They hurt me – in ways I never thought I’d fucking hurt, Billy. Nancy Wheeler broke my heart and Jonathan Byers broke my goddamn face. And I forgive them. Because I hurt them too.”  
  
Billy feels as if he’s swallowing around a mass of blisters. Everything stings, his palms, his chest, his face.  
  
“I was the worst kind of person.” Steve says. “I was the shittiest, most vile kind of dick you can imagine. And I wish everyday I’d done it different. I wish I’d done everything so fucking different. The things I said, the things I did. But I can’t go back and get a do-over. So that’s what I mean when I say it’s okay, Billy.” Steve places his hands on Billy’s shoulders and squeezes, forces their eyes to meet. His gaze is determined, hard. His touch is like a brand, a burn. “That’s what I mean when I say I get it. Cause I fucking _get it.”_  
  
Billy can’t speak. He stares at Steve and hopes that it’s enough. His shoulders are tingling, the sensation seeping all the way down his chest, his stomach –  
  
“So come eat a freaking sandwich with me.” Steve states, pulls back from Billy and moves toward the counter. “It can have as many tomatoes in it as you want, buddy.”  
  
Billy laughs, open and warm. He feels looser, _freer_ , that one touch unwinding everything inside him.  
  
Steve jumps at the sound, turns around as if he’s just been spooked.  
  
“What?” Billy grins.  
  
Colour rises to Steve’s face, hot and unexpected. Steve quickly spins back. “Nothing. Look, what do you want? We’ve got just about everything. Take your pick.”  
  
“Surprise me then, Harrington.” Billy tosses back. But the name doesn’t come out spitting and harsh. It sounds playful, fond.  
  
Steve shrugs with a grin, turns back to his sandwich.  
  
“Oh, and pretty boy?” Billy leans over Steve’s shoulder, because he can’t resist. The pet name feels good in his mouth, a long lost friend. Billy quit saying it after Max asked him to leave everyone alone. Stop his taunts, stop his mocking.  
  
If Max only knew that Billy really, _really_ wasn’t mocking.  
  
“Huh?” Steve asks, head bowed. Billy can actually feel the heat emanate from him. His ears are beetroot.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
That’s it. That’s all he says. About a million and one jokes and innuendos came to his mind, a million and one things he could say, would _usually_ say.  
  
But Billy doesn’t say any of them. He says thanks. It doesn’t come out like a joke.   
  
He leaves Steve where he is, crosses over into the living room and sits down, flicks the TV on and kicks his feet up. He passes through channels mindlessly, heart still thrumming from what just happened, from the strange nebulous sensation that feels like _forgiveness_. Billy can’t even recognise the emotion. He’s never felt it before.  
  
Just then, he senses a dip by his side.  
  
Billy looks up and sees Steve sit down with two plates as he offers Billy one. Billy takes it, cautious, before he lifts the sandwich and bites.   
  
It’s _good_. It’s chicken and tomato. Billy really has to stop himself from moaning this time, which ends up in a muffled, cut off noise, but he can’t really even care because shit Steve has the good stuff.  
  
Sure at home Billy cooks, but that mainly means throwing together anything that’s left in the fridge, which can sometimes be a block of cheese, some stale bread, tinned soup and a pickle.   
  
He’s made some dishes he isn’t proud of.   
  
This, though. This is on some other level. Everything tastes so fresh, so fucking _premium._ _  
_  
“‘S good!” Billy tries, holding up his sandwich to demonstrate.   
  
Steve takes one look at him and bursts out laughing again.   
  
“Whgg?” Billy gurgles.   
  
“Your — I just —“ Steve waves a hand, his nose scrunched, head tipped back, and it happens again.   
  
Billy is powerless to that laugh. He feels it happen even though his mouth is full, feels the snickers get caught in his throat and his eyes blur and for some reason it’s just so damn _funny_.  
  
“You’re not half bad, Hargrove.” Steve says when they’re done, still beaming wide as he looks at the TV. “We should hang out more.”  
  
Billy pretends to chew thoughtfully and then swallows. “I mean, I could get used to the five star Harrington hotel.”  
  
In reality, Billy feels as if both his heart and his balls are about to fucking explode.   
  
What does that mean? Does that mean during school? After school? On the weekends? What is _half bad_? As opposed to all bad? Or not bad at all?  
  
Is Steve asking to be Billy’s friend? Or saying that they should be friends? Is this the initiation into friendship?  
  
So far, Billy’s mainly been barging his way into the popular crowds with a well-timed insult, a few buttons left undone and a cigarette between his smile. It’s worked well up until now, but he knows those people aren’t his friends and they know he isn’t theirs. It’s a mutually beneficial situation. It works for all parties involved.   
  
But Billy wants more now. He wants someone to talk to. He wants someone to laugh with.  
  
Maybe when Billy was younger he had friends. He thinks he must have had a friend. He can’t remember now.  
  
“It’s all the works: cherry tomatoes,” Steve starts listing on his fingers, “A half an hour nap —“  
  
Billy laughs again, shakes his head and stops worrying that he’s giving too much away.  
  
They sit there for a while, even after the sandwiches are done. Time ticks on but for once it’s not Billy’s main priority.   
  
Steve ruffles his hair when he’s trying to explain something he finds hard to put into words, and uses his hands to say almost _anything_ , and is painstakingly beautiful.   
  
He is beautiful in an exquisitely detailed way. In the sound of his voice, that one lone curl over his forehead, the smattering of freckles across his nose, the width of his lips as they smile. Billy’s never seen so much detail put into one human being, wonders what the _fuck_ God was thinking when he made Steve Harrington or if he just had a few hours to kill. It hurts to look at Steve — as in, it physically hurts under his breastbone to focus on Steve’s face for too long, because the urge to touch it becomes overwhelming.   
  
But Steve made him a sandwich. Bought him tomatoes. Let him sleep in his house, use his bed. Take up his space.   
  
Steve Harrington, against all reason and logic, wants to be friends with him. And Billy will take it. He’ll take whatever he can get.   
  
Billy will be damned if he fucks this up.  
  
He drags his feet on leaving, waits until the very last breath of a second until he needs to stand up.  
  
“Wh.” Steve blinks as Billy dusts his jeans.  
  
“Gotta go get Max.” Billy explains.  
  
Steve’s face falls, loudly and obviously. Billy’s heart twists upside down and starts beating backwards.   
  
“It’s been.” He can’t quite keep the grin off his face, so to avoid any mishaps Billy just nods. “Yeah. See you around Harrington.”  
  
“I.” Steve stands up too, then pauses for a second.  
  
“What?”   
  
“The house is free like, all the time. I just said five cause I didn’t know if you wanted to be alone or not.”  
  
Billy frowns, not following. “What?”  
  
“Like, uh. You can come over … anytime. If you can’t sleep at night as well. There’s like sixty spare rooms. And I keep my back door unlocked, you know, for the kids.” Steve flutters a hand in the air.  
  
Billy blinks. “Oh.”  
  
“Not — I mean the offer is _there_. And I’ll be asleep anyway. Just if you need a place to crash. If it’s too loud at yours or something.”  
  
Billy nods. His skin feels warm. “Okay. Thanks.”  
  
“But don’t walk!” Steve adds, eyes wide. “Never walk. Always drive, okay?”  
  
“Sure.” Billy says.  
  
“Promise you won’t — I mean tell me you won’t walk, okay?” Steve holds his gaze as if trying to say something.  
  
“Relax, I won’t walk!” Billy stretches out his arms with a smile. “But I really gotta go —“   
  
“Oh! Right. Okay.” He walks Billy up to the door as if Billy couldn’t _see_ it himself.

____

Then opens it as though he’s the butler. “Um. Bye then.”  
  
Billy looks at Steve holding the door, a little flushed, his hair a mess. He huffs, swallows down a smile. “Later, pretty boy.”   
  
Billy really means it. 

____

*

____

When night comes around, Billy is quiet as he opens the latch and swings a foot around.

____

Billy’s perfected the art of sneaking out. He’s an expert at it by now. In California when there was a party, a bonfire, a whatever, he had it down to a record time of five minutes.

____

He knew the time Neil went to sleep, when he fell asleep, and when he woke up. Even if it made the mornings rough, made him groggy and more likely to make a mistake, more likely to get a beating, Billy didn’t care. It was still escape, even just for a few hours.

____

Now Billy is sneaking out of his house to go sleep in one of Steve Harrington’s guest rooms.

____

His life is weird.

____

Billy contemplates just walking, because it’s only a few blocks and it’s a mild night. But he remembers what Steve said, and thinks he’d be pretty pissed if he found out Billy just ignored him anyway.

____

Billy’s not about to screw everything up.

____

He starts the Camaro in the garage, quiets her with gentle hands along the wheel. He drives out slow, and it’s only a few minutes before he’s at Harrington’s place.

____

Billy creeps through the back doors with familiar ease.

____

The TV is still on. But as Billy makes his way further into the house, he sees why.

____

Steve is asleep on the couch, the TV crackling quietly, volume turned down low. The nail-bat is sat beside his knee because he’s upright, head resting back against the couch. It’s the most awkward and uncomfortable position Billy’s ever seen anyone sleep, ever. He doesn’t know how the fuck Steve is doing it. It looks near _painful_.

____

Billy comes to sit beside him quietly, turns off the TV with a soft click of the remote. He’s about to find Steve a blanket or something when Steve stirs a little. Billy freezes, but then Steve just shifts in his sleep and falls closer to Billy.

____

Billy tries not to move. He can feel Steve’s breaths against the side of his neck. He can’t get up, because it’ll cause too much movement and Steve will be awake in a second.

____

So Billy sits there, still and unmoving.

____

It ends up being pointless.

____

As if Steve can sense him, he wriggles in his sleep and ends up falling sideways, right onto Billy’s shoulder. He doesn’t even seem to notice.

____

Billy can sense the irony. It’s almost an exact replica of a few days ago when Billy fell asleep on him in class.

____

But this is worse, because it’s _Steve Harrington_ on Billy’s shoulder. Steve Harrington making soft snuffling sounds and burying his face into Billy’s leather jacket. Steve Harrington who now twists his whole body and all but plasters himself to Billy’s side. He even throws an arm around Billy’s middle.

____

Billy is literally trapped.

____

So he accepts his fate. He turns the TV back on and lets Steve sleep on his shoulder, flicks through the channels and tries to find something to keep him entertained. Keep him _distracted_.

____

But Steve is warm pressed against him like this. A different warm than Billy’s used to: not a heat-warm like the sun, not a sweat-warm like basketball practise. It’s a warm Billy’s not felt before. Like a blanket on a cold night, only better. It’s weird. Billy can’t explain it right.

____

He can smell Steve’s hair underneath his nose, apple-scented. He can feel Steve’s cheek on his shoulder, the sharp ridge of his jaw. His hand resting on Billy’s stomach, the weight of his arm holding onto Billy.

____

He tries to escape several times, but at every shift or tug, Steve just tightens his arm and presses his face deeper into Billy’s neck. In the end his actions prove counter-productive, because it just pulls Steve all the more closer until he’s essentially spooning Billy’s side.

____

Billy feels his eyes drag down. He fights it, knows there will be _hell_ to pay if Steve finds him like this in the morning.

But it just feels so nice. Everything feels so pleasantly warm and soft. It’s as if Steve’s touch is a drug, and the longer Billy endures it the more its effects begin to fog up his mind, loosen his limbs, until the thought of leaving seems impossible.

____

Billy feels his head tilt down. He jerks it up, resists the pull, until he can’t fight it anymore and it falls on top of Steve’s. Billy readjusts, moves the arm currently supporting all of Steve’s weight until it’s behind Steve. There’s really only one option left, and that’s to curl his arm around Steve’s back. It’s the only plausible answer. Billy can’t exactly chop his arm off.

____

Steve moves too, but Billy doesn’t really know how or why because his eyes are closed, and everything is nice, and he’s floating on the surface, he’s bobbing on gentle waves.

____


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, this was meant to be finished. Sorry, it ran away from me a little!! And to think this was meant to be a one-shot ...

Billy wakes with a jolt: a startled grunt as he blinks, disorientated.

He doesn’t know where he is, _what_ he is, and searches around wildly as he tries to figure it out. His eyes move everywhere, take in the crackling TV, the dark living room, before he sees what actually woke him.

Billy stares.

First: Steve Harrington is crying in his sleep.

Second: Steve Harrington is in Billy’s arms.

Steve fists a hand in his t-shirt, face drenched in sweat and tears, screwed up tight and pained as he twists and writhes.

“Steve.” Billy tries, his voice coming out hushed and careful, still rough with sleep. He places a hand on Steve’s shoulder, but Steve only seems to spasm more, his mouth opening and closing desperately.

It’s as if he’s trying to speak, or he’s _unable_ to speak.

What kind of dream is he having? What kind of _fucked up shit_ causes this kind of nightmare?

Then it clicks.

Billy beat up Steve.

He beat Steve the way Neil beats him.

And Billy’s spent most of his life familiar with this dream. He’s spent most of his nights waking up from this dream.

Everything drops out of Billy. His gut, his lungs, his heart. He feels as if he could throw up. Throw up all those things up and keep fucking going.

Some part of Billy wants to deny it, doesn’t want to even believe it. Wants to find ways that it can’t be true.

Because Steve said it was alright. He said that just a few hours ago. He told Billy he’d done shit in the past. He said he forgave Billy, that he understood, that he _got it._

He wouldn’t have said all that if he had nightmares like this, would he? He wouldn’t have been so cool if it caused him _this_. Right?

“Steve.” Billy tries again, harder. Steve curls in on himself, shies away from Billy where before he’d clutched at Billy like a lifeline.

Billy feels his insides fucking shrivel and die. He hates to do it, fucking hates it, but he grips Steve’s two shoulders and shakes hard.

“Steve, wake up!”

Steve gasps as if he’s drowning. He throws himself into being awake, scrambles away from Billy and goes for the bat.

“Steve!” Billy shouts, but Steve’s already lifted it high in the air.

Billy braces for impact.

Nothing happens.

Billy peeks an eye open. His hands are up in surrender, shoulders hunched to his ears, body pressed into the couch in a defenceless little ball.

“Billy?” Steve’s voice is small, weak.

Then the bat hits the floor so hard it thuds.

“Billy.” Steve reaches out, his hands clumsy along Billy’s shoulders, arms, chest, checking for injury. His touch ignites sensation all across Billy’s skin. “Billy, Billy I’m so sorry, I didn’t know – I’m so _sorry_ – ”

Billy uncurls himself from his protective ball, melts from the effect of Steve’s hands. “It’s alright Steve – Steve, I’m fine, seriously –” He huffs a laugh.

Steve’s hands find his face, cradle his head, sink into his hair, and _Jesus_ Billy’s never felt anything like it. It’s like the hit of adrenaline and the most intense rush of relief he’s ever fucking _experienced_.

Billy sags back on the cushions, eyes near rolling to the back of his head as Steve searches all over, presses fingertips into Billy’s neck and wow, that’s certainly a kink Billy never existed – not that it’s turning him on, more making him want to break down and drag Steve into his arms.

Who the fuck knew Billy Hargrove was so freaking vanilla? Not him, that’s for sure.

Billy’s done a couple things with some girls – read: a couple – and despite all the big talk, he’s not actually been with anyone in Hawkins. They’re all so uptight and midwestern, not that Billy’s truly bothered by that. He actually appreciates the fact he doesn’t need to keep up any appearances around here, other than taking a girl out for a nice meal and kissing her on the doorstep. It’s pretty simple.

But when Billy says a _couple_ , he means a make-out, some heavy petting, and then a gentle push back, a sly smirk, a charming toss of his head and a, ‘better head home, you know how my old folks get.’

Most of the girls in Cali went shy and flustered, unwilling to ask for more and unused to such chivalry. Billy can be an ass, for sure, but he knows how to treat a girl. He doesn’t just get his reputation for slamming people into lockers. He’s got a lot of faces, and one of those is bad-boy-turned-secret-gentleman. The girls love it, and what’s more: they _talk_. Helps Billy out a lot.

He’s never let anyone touch his hair though.

Whenever he’s with a girl, their hands usually stay on his shoulders, the lightest feather-like touch. If things ever progress past kissing, the few girls Billy’s been with sigh and lie back, maybe because that’s what they’re so familiar with doing, or probably because that’s what they’ve been trained guys enjoy.

Either way, it means that Billy is really, rarely ever touched. Not for long at least, and _never_ like this.

Sure Billy can shove people around or sling an arm around a girl’s shoulder, but it’s never returned. Nobody ever touches him back.

It also means Billy is a massive fucking virgin.

The sad fact is that Billy’s not a mixture of flavours on his ice-cream kind of guy – he’s very much a one flavour, very singular taste kind of guy.

That just happens to be other guys.

And there’s no way in hell Billy’s ever trying it, testing out the waters and acting on any of his thoughts. Neil would be able to sniff it out, see it all over Billy with just one glance.

It’s not happening. It’s never happening.

But Steve Harrington’s hands are fucking bliss. They’re what Billy actually imagines greets you at the gates of Heaven. If he ever gets that far.

Steve doesn’t seem to have noticed Billy’s mortifying reaction of turning into a pile of goo, too busy making sure he hasn’t hurt Billy with the freaky spiked bat – which just adds an additional layer of warmth to the already dizzying-heat that’s spreading its way throughout Billy’s body.

And then just as abruptly, Steve’s hands are gone.

Billy blinks his eyes open. He hadn’t even realised he’d closed them in the first place.

“I’m so sorry Billy, I literally.” Steve stops, voice choked.

Billy suddenly realises that Steve’s trembling: his shoulders, his arms, his hands are all shaking. It’s still dark, the thin moonlight that streams in highlighting the curve of Steve’s cheekbones, the arch of his bowed head.

“Hey, hey.” Billy stands up and takes Steve by the shoulders, a mirror of their earlier pose just a few hours ago. “Steve, it’s fine. I’m fine. We all get bad dreams. Right?”

Steve blows his out, shakes his head. “I could’ve …”

“But you didn’t.” Billy finishes, voice hard. “You didn’t, Steve. I’m fine.”

Steve relaxes into his touch, almost sags in exhaustion and relief. Billy feels a thrum low in his chest at that, pride and protectiveness all rolled into one. He wants to draw Steve into his arms and bury his face in Steve’s neck, wants to wrap arms around Steve and grip tight.

It’s a weird urge. A foreign urge.

Billy’s used to the familiar pull of Steve Harrington – his floppy hair, his dorky grin, his wide shoulders, those massively long-fingered hands. Billy doesn’t let himself look any lower than that, because he doesn’t need the fantasies to keep him awake at night for the rest of his life. The completely _involuntary_ glances that have happened purely by accident when Steve walks by all brazen have already been enough to sear into Billy’s brain with the heat of a thousand suns.

But even then, the top half of Steve Harrington is still just as fucking pretty as the rest of him (Billy can only assume, it was only a glance after all, but knowing his luck the bottom half is probably even better). 

Either way, he’s familiar with being attracted to Steve Harrington. He’s familiar with wanting to run hands through his hair, kiss his smiling mouth, feel those hands on him.

He’s not familiar with … _this_. Wanting to hug Steve, to just hold him, to feel his body warmth and his hot breath and his muscles relax into Billy’s touch.

It’s …frightening. But it’s not in the cold rush of fear that paralyses him. It’s something else. It’s something new. It feels like fear, but in the same way Billy watching himself fall from a cliff would be scary. He’s seeing himself, but he can’t actually feel it.

“Billy?” Steve asks.

Billy blinks. He’s still holding Steve by the shoulders. Their faces are closer than he’d realised. Closer than they’ve been before. Even in the dark Steve’s eyes seem to shine. They shouldn’t, because they’re a murky brown colour, but they do. They suit him, though. They’re Steve’s all their earnest transparency, all their ridiculous Bambi expressiveness. Billy wouldn’t want Steve with any other eye colour. He wouldn’t want any other eyes on Steve, period. They’re Billy’s favourite pair of eyes.

“It … it’s still late.” Billy manages, looks to the side and out the window where it’s very clearly dark. “Do you – want to go back to sleep?”

Steve frowns. “I. Sure.” And then he tilts his head. “Did I wake you up? Sorry.”

Billy swallows, his cheeks heating obviously. Thank fuck its late. “Nah, it’s cool.”

He’s not about to admit that he fell asleep beside Steve just because Steve shifted a little bit onto his shoulder and it was too tempting to move.

“Where were you sleeping?” Steve asks.

Billy blinks. Freezes. “Huh?”

“What room where you in?” Steve continues. “If you could hear me.”

“I didn’t – I was getting water.” Billy lies, and it’s a terrible lie, it really fucking is, and this is coming from someone who lies every day. The delivery was rushed and his expression is giving off all kinds of tells, but Steve just nods and accepts it.

“Right. Sorry. I just – I fell asleep on the sofa and,” Steve waves a hand around the air, “I was just caught off guard, you know, with someone waking me up, cause nobody’s usually in the house –”

“Yeah, yeah.” Billy nods, pretends that he’s eating this all up, believing every word coming out of Steve’s mouth.

Billy doesn’t believe Steve, though.

Nobody has those nightmares without at least a little understanding that nightmares like that can exist in real life.

And who knew Steve Harrington was a Grade A liar? Billy’s actually a little convinced. But if he hadn’t just seen Steve thrashing and writhing in the throes of a dream, Billy would have fallen hook line and sinker.

“What’s the time?” Steve rubs at his forehead and brings his watch up to his face. “5AM. Jeez.”

Billy came here at about half twelve, once he was sure everyone was in bed and near enough asleep.

That means he slept for a solid four and a half hours. Uninterrupted. No noises, no nothing.

“You’re serious?”

Steve presses his knuckles into his eyes and yawns. “I know, I –” Then he catches sight of Billy’s face. “What?”

Billy can’t help but smile. He’s still tired, that’s for sure, a little weary and heavy-lidded. But it’s nowhere near the bone-deep exhaustion that Billy wakes up to everyday. It’s nothing like the headaches that Billy fights through to pull himself up out of bed, the crankiness that makes him want to explode at the slightest nuisance.

He’s not well rested, doesn’t even know what the fuck that would look like, but he’s _something_.

“Nothing. I just don’t usually sleep that much.” Billy replies. He shrugs, tries to play it off.

Steve stares at him. “Don’t sleep as much … as like four hours? What do you mean?”

“I get shitty sleeps, like I said, ‘cause of the racket at night.”

Steve is still looking at him like he’s grown a second head. “Billy … what do you mean you don’t sleep more than _four hours_ at night?”

“Nothing!” Billy chuckles, his defences already up. Steve is looking at Billy like he’s figuring something out, like he’s trying to understand something and getting halfway there. “I’m a light sleeper, alright?” Billy stretches his arms out. “And I only get like an hour after school till you come back. I got shit to do. I got parties to be at. I don’t sleep that much. It’s no big deal.”

Steve takes a step forward. “It kind of is, Billy, when you’re meant to be getting more than _double that_ – how are you even functioning in school? How do you even concentrate?”

“Hey, I do fucking fine in school.” Billy snarls, moving toward the door. Fuck this. Fuck Steve Harrington.

A hand catches him around the bicep, but it’s not hard. It’s not a grip. It’s just holding him.

Billy pauses, looks back.

“Billy.” Steve murmurs, patient. “Come on. You need more sleep.”

Billy shakes him off. “What, are you a doctor now?” He mocks, because Steve is fucking patronising him like he’s three years old.

“No, Billy – look, you need –”

Billy is already at the door. He opens it, ready to storm out and slam it with a foot –

“Would you just stay!” Steve shouts.

Billy stops. He turns around.

Steve swallows, arms hanging by his sides, awkward and unsure. “Would you … will you just stay?”

His voice is soft, face turned away from Billy, jaw clenched.

Billy sighs. The tension bleeds from his body. “I’ve got to be up in like an hour –” Is as far as he gets.

“You’ve got to be up in an _hour?”_ Steve whips his head around and gapes.

“Fuck this shit.” Billy hisses, slams the door behind him.

He’s down the first step of Steve’s perfect porch, and his foot is lifted in the air to take another, before all the anger just drains from him in one sudden swoop. Maybe he’s too tired to hold onto it, or maybe he’s not even angry at all. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Steve’s face flashes into his mind, _You’ve got to be up in an hour?_ He’d looked shocked, even a little outraged. And he’s right. It’s fucking ridiculous. Billy needs to get up at 6AM every day. But he doesn’t want Steve Harrington, with his perfect mansion and his perfect life and his perfect face, _judging_ Billy.

Billy’s throat is tight. He tries to take the step and finds he can’t do it. He pauses on the spot. Everything inside him wants to go back.

Billy storms back up the steps and throws the door open.

Steve is still stood where he was, looking out the front window. The window Billy would have passed on his way out.

He turns to look at Billy, eyes wide, expression slack.

Billy just stands there. He doesn’t say anything. He crosses his arms. He taps a foot.

Steve smiles. “Hey.”

Billy feels a muscle in his face tick. “Hi.” He grunts.

“You know if we’re going to be friends, you can’t just blow up when I –”

“I didn’t fuckin’ _blow_ –”

Steve stops and raises an eyebrow, patient as ever.

Billy shuts his mouth. He huffs. He doesn’t look Steve in the eye. Then he realises Steve said _friends_ , and tries to ignore the blush spreading across his face and hopes Steve does too.

“Do you want to be friends?” Steve asks, plain as day.

Billy splutters, red as a fire-truck. _“What?”_

Steve stares him dead in the eye. His face grows serious, any trace of humour or playfulness melting away. “I asked if you wanted to be friends, Billy. I want to know where I stand. I don’t like not knowing where I stand with people.”

Billy blinks before he swallows, glances away. He can tell this means something to Steve. He doesn’t know what the right answer is. He doesn’t know how to voice what he wants without actually _voicing what he wants._

“I mean.” He kicks his toe into the floorboards. “Sure. If that’s where you stand, that’s where I stand.”

“That’s not an answer.” Steve states.

Billy blows air out his nose. “ _Alright_ , Harrington, Jesus. You want me to spell it out? I wanna be friends, yeah.” He grits his teeth. He can’t help but feel it’s a trick, a _trap_.

“Billy.” Steve says, long-suffering as he tilts a hip, places a hand there. “Can you not look like I’m pulling your damn teeth out every time we have a conversation about how we feel?”

“Christ, Harrington, you sound like a goddamn fa–”

Billy stops himself just in time.

Steve looks at him. He’s giving Billy a face that Billy’s never seen before. He doesn’t even know what to call that emotion – it’s more a lack of one. It’s just a lack of anything.

Shame curdles inside Billy’s gut like food poisoning. He lowers his head and doesn’t say anything for a beat.

Neither does Steve.

“Sorry.” Billy blurts, just to break the silence, just to break the terrible stifling weight that’s descended upon them. He doesn’t meet Steve’s eye but says, “Just – habit. My old man talks like that.” He swallows down his pride and self-defences in a sour mouthful and carries on, “You know I don’t … have a problem with it.”

Billy is kind of the last person in the world who'd have a problem with it, if Steve were gay.

When he’s finally able to drag his eyes up to Steve’s face, he finds Steve smiling.

Billy blinks.

It was that easy? It’s never just _that easy._ Is it? One half-assed mumbled explanation later and Billy’s fuck-up is erased?

“Good.” Steve nods.

Billy frowns. “Wh – good?”

“Yah.” Steve says, still grinning. “Good. You coming in or what?”

Billy realises he’s still just stood at the doorway, arms crossed, shoulders hunched, so he steps into the house and shoves his hands into his jeans.

Steve guides Billy inside, and it’s then that Billy notices Steve is wearing … exactly the same clothes Billy is wearing.

But Billy sneaked out of his house to come here. He threw on a shirt and jeans because he knew he’d have to run out in them anyways.

And that’s what Steve has on. He’s wearing a soft sweater and a pair of Levi’s like he’s in school, like he’s not in his own house and meant to be _sleeping_.

“Hey.” Billy starts, and Steve spins around.

“Why. What are you wearing?” Billy asks, gestures to Steve’s overall appearance.

Steve blinks. “Wh …” He trails off when he looks down and sees that he’s in his every day clothes _._ His _school uniform,_ basically.

“Um. I just fell asleep on the sofa.” Steve explains. “I forgot to go to bed.”

“Yeah.” Billy states. “That’s why you’ve got your nailed bat right beside you and your shoes still on.”

Steve looks down at his shoes, as if he’s surprised to find them.

“I.” Steve tries.

“You’re weird, Steve Harrington.” Billy deduces.

Steve glances up with a laugh, his hair sailing with an arc in the air. It’s the first _genuine_ laugh Steve’s given around Billy _._ It’s the first time Billy’s made Steve laugh, a real laugh, a _good_ laugh.

Billy smiles back, hopelessly charmed, until Steve shakes his head.

“Trust me, it’s Hawkins that’s weird.” Steve assures. “It rubs off on you. You’ll see what I mean soon.”

“Sure.” Billy arches an eyebrow, but he humours Steve. “What, something in the water that makes sleeping in Levi’s just so much more comfortable?”

“Now that.” Steve holds up a long finger. “That you never get used to.” And then he pulls down the front of his jeans and does a shimmy, as if they’ve ridden up, which they probably _have_ , but Billy feels all the blood in his body rush to his head because oh yeah, _fuck_ , he’s actually insanely hot for Steve Harrington.

Jesus, sometimes when they’re talking and messing around, it’s as if Billy actually _forgets_ that. He didn’t imagine it ever being something that could just slip his mind, didn’t think he’d ever hold a conversation with Steve long enough for that to become a thing.

But it is a thing.

Billy gets so caught up in Steve’s conversation, in Steve’s words and his grin and the way his eyes slant a little when they catch on Billy, not a crinkle but something similar, that it takes physically Steve readjusting himself in his jeans for Billy’s brain to remind him that Steve Harrington is the hottest fucking person that’s ever lived.

Steve pulls down the legs of his jeans and turns a little, gives Billy a wonderful view of his ass.

Billy twists his head to the ceiling so fast his vision blurs.

“Woah, okay.” Billy blinks hard, because spots are dancing in front of him now, all grey and fuzzy.

“Hey.” Steve says.

Billy turns to focus on him.

Steve is frowning, nonplussed. “You okay? What happened?”

_Oh nothing, you’re just so hot that you’re actually affecting my eyesight._

“Just – dizzy for a second.” Billy squeezes his eyes shut and tilts where he’s standing, because it turns out he _is_ actually dizzy, what the fuck.

Then there’s hands gripping him again, holding him up. Billy almost trips, but the hands steady him, and Billy brushes against a warm chest before he pushed a little back. “Okay, think its time you sat down.”

“I’m fine, I’m …” But Steve’s hands must have some kind of sorcery in them, he must have a _literal_ magic touch, because Billy is sagging the same way he did before, and then he’s pushed down and onto something soft.

“You need to sleep, Billy.” Steve murmurs. “This isn’t good for you.”

“M’ fine.” Billy slurs, his head already resting against the plush back of the leather sofa. He can’t keep his eyes open. “I can usually … wake up a lot … more …”

“I’ll wake you at six.” Steve says, but his voice is growing distant. “Sleep.”

Billy does.

*

The next day at school Billy is perky, alert, answers out in class, gets everything right, and feels as if he could run a mile straight and keep going.

Here’s the math.

Steve Harrington’s touch = a good sleep.

Billy’s sussed it out. He knows what’s going on. He’s got it figured. It’s Steve’s _fucking hands._

First Billy thought it was having a free house. And then he thought it was Steve’s house. And then maybe just Steve’s presence in general.

But after Steve set Billy down on the sofa and commanded him to sleep, Billy _slept_. He slept so deep and so hard that it felt like when Steve woke him up, he was dragging Billy from the depths of unconsciousness.

That’s twice he’s totally and utterly _blacked out_ during sleep, and the first time was when Steve fell asleep on his shoulder (did he actually fall asleep on Billy’s shoulder or did Billy just place himself in the exact perfect position for Steve to fall asleep on him? Billy guesses the latter, but still).

Whatever part of Steve is touching Billy – his hands, his head – it seems to send Billy into a coma.

Billy is _bouncing_ for basketball practise, practically vibrating out of his skin for the chance to press up against Steve, to feel that heady sense of relief, as if his skin has been aching for Steve’s touch long before Billy even met him.

He’s changing in the locker room when Steve comes in, and Billy’s head lifts like an overeager puppy. Billy is pretty sure if he had a tail he’d be wagging it. Hell, he can already feel his tongue wag as he licks his lips on a grin.

“Harrington.” Billy calls.

Steve finally catches sight of him, grins back and comes over to dump his things on the bench next to Billy. “Hargrove.” Steve murmurs, but it’s soft and full of heat and amusement and Billy can barely contain the glee within his body.

Then Steve starts undressing, right in front of Billy’s face, lifting his sweater and his shirt over his head and Billy’s – yep, he’s done here.

“Catch ya in there.” Billy slaps Steve and regrets it immediately, feels the smooth skin of Steve’s bare shoulder in his palm for a second before it’s gone.

“Sure!” Steve calls after him, but Billy’s already on his way out and not looking behind.

They’re on fire on the court.

Billy can read every one of Steve’s plays, can anticipate where he’ll be next, what he’ll do next, and meets him there.

Steve dribbles and Billy presses all over him, all around him, but it’s different. Steve pushes back into him this time, and Billy catches sight of his grin every couple seconds as he spins, ducks, tries to escape Billy’s presence.

Whenever Billy actually does catch the ball he tosses it to another teammate that’s closer to the net, doesn’t even attempt any hoops, and if he’s forced to actually shoot he takes his shot from where he’s standing – right beside Harrington.

Steve seems to be doing the exact same thing, only ever entertaining someone if it’s Billy, only ever attacking or defending if it’s _Billy_.

It’s electrifying and Billy feels his heart pound a jack-rabbit beat inside his chest, but it’s … it’s _not_ _enough_.

It’s not the same as Steve’s hands on him. It’s not the same as Steve initiating the touch.

Sure, Steve’s whole posture screams with an invitation: his loose-limbed stance, the way he tosses his sweaty hair with a wide beam in the direction of Billy, telling him that Steve’s enjoying it. That he wants it.

But Billy wants Steve’s hands on him. He wants Steve to drop the ball entirely and press the whole length of his body to the whole length of Billy’s, to run his hands through Billy’s wet hair and press his nose to Billy’s nose and –

Billy slips on his ass, too busy fantasising, and hisses in pain as he grimaces.

Suddenly there’s a hand in his field of vision.

Billy blinks sweat out of his eyes and looks up to see Steve Harrington, grin wide, eyes playful, extending a hand to Billy.

“Hey.” Steve says.

Billy beams. “Hi.” He takes Steve’s hand and feels that instantaneous rush of relief, of pleasure and heat, as Steve tightens his grip on Billy’s hand and pulls him up.

Only to stop about a third of the way.

“Better plant your feet next time.” Steve grins wickedly and drops Billy’s hand. Drop’s Billy back onto the floor.

Billy’s so surprised he doesn’t even brace for impact.

He hits the ground with a thud, and the pleasure and relief he’d felt from Steve’s touch is washed away as if it never existed.

It’s replaced with a sick, cold feeling of rejection.

“Billy, woah.” Steve says, and moves at if to help him up again.

“I’m fine.” Billy snaps, rubs the back of his head. It doesn’t hurt though. His stomach is the thing that hurts.

“Billy, I was just messing.” Steve’s voice is low, full of regret, and Billy glances up to find Steve stood over him, chewing his lip, worry written all over him.

Billy huffs a laugh, tries a smile. “It’s fine, Harrington. Honest.”

Steve sticks out a hand again. “Come on.”

“No, it’s fine –” Billy waves him off, because he doesn’t know if they’re still messing, he doesn’t know if he can handle another rejection like that again, doesn’t want to tear up on the fucking _basketball court._

“Billy, please.” Steve shakes his hand. “I’ll help you up.”

Billy just shakes his head again, and Steve makes a frustrated sound. “Come on Billy, I really thought you’d get it, I was just doing what you did.”

Billy frowns. “Huh?” And then he remembers those early days of antagonising Steve Harrington at every chance he got, because someone _that pretty_ shouldn’t be allowed to exist in _Hawkins_ , of _all_ places in the world.

 _Plant your feet_ , he’d growled just for the the excuse to get up close and personal to Steve Harrington’s face. And also because it’s pretty sound advice, and Steve could use some. He’s like a baby deer on the court. 

“Jesus.” Billy laughs, a little more genuine this time. “I was a real ass.”

“I know.” Steve smiles. “Me too. I’ll help you up. I promise. Trust me.”

Billy pauses. He glances from Steve’s offered hand to Steve’s face, tries to calculate whether he’s telling the truth.

He looks back to Steve’s face and doesn’t look away as he takes Steve’s hand, trying to communicate. _I trust you. I’m trusting you. I don’t do this very often._

Steve pulls him straight to his feet and right up against his chest.

“See?” Steve smiles. “Telling the truth.”

Billy doesn’t know how to reply in the face of that smile, can’t even formulate _words_ when Steve is smiling at him like that. So instead, he hooks a foot around Harrington’s ankle and yanks.

Steve slips instantly, but Billy’s still gripping his hand and he’s prepared. Before Steve can hit the ground, Billy stops him.

Steve hovers in the air, eyes wide, staring up at Billy.

“Now we’re even.” Billy grins, wicked, and keeps his hold on Steve to pull him back up again.

Steve’s mouth is open, lips parted.

The game already ended in the time they were talking, so Billy walks off the court and to the locker room, tries to ignore the spike of glee low in his belly at making Steve look like that.

It’s as he’s getting his towels from his locker that he hears it.

“Jesus, Hargrove, are you Harrington’s personal guard dog or something now? What was that?”

Billy whips his head up at Tommy’s voice, finds Tommy stuffing clothes into his locker with a force he definitely didn’t take onto the court.

“You jealous, baby?” Billy mock-grins, all the while his gut coils tight.

Christ, why did Tommy take today to be observant? Any other day and Billy can literally see the words slide into one ear and out the other.

Tommy snorts even as his jaw clenches. “Sure, Hargrove. Just don’t get why you guys are so friendly all of a sudden.”

Billy thinks about denying it. Rebuffing that statement, coming out with some trash talk.

But if they’re going to be friends now – which Billy hopes they are, prays they are, dreams that they could at least be that – then it’ll probably get out someway if Billy and Steve start acting friendly. People talk. _Hawkins_ talks.

Billy wants to hang out with Steve at lunch. He wants to go to the theatre with him on the weekends. He wants to be known as Steve Harrington’s friend. He wants people to see him and Steve as friends.

Billy closes his locker and leans on it, facing Tommy head-on. “Well maybe I changed my mind. Harrington’s alright. Weren’t you guys friends once?”

Personally, Billy wishes they still were. He’d have _loved_ to see Steve’s expressions at putting up with Tommy H. on a daily basis. That would’ve been _gold_.

Tommy huffs. “Harrington’s a pussy. He –”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Billy says, croons all soft, but fresh anger burns the walls of his insides. He takes a step closer to Tommy, backs him up against the lockers. “What did I just say? Harrington’s alright. _All-right._ ” Billy spells out. “I _like_ him. We’re friends now. And what is it I give my friends?”

Tommy swallows. He mumbles something.

“What? Can’t hear that.”

“Reputation. Respect.” Tommy lists from memory.

Billy grins his shark’s grin, teeth sharp. “That’s right. I give my friends respect. People respect my friends. Got it.” He slaps Tommy’s cheek lightly a few times, but Tommy still flinches when Billy’s hand comes up each time.

Any other time that might fill Billy with self-loathing, but right now a sick sense of satisfaction is all that pervades him.

Tommy just mumbles again, takes his bag, and stops in his tracks.

Billy glances from Tommy to what he’s staring at.

Steve is stood at the doorway, agape.

Billy feels the flush of his entire life spill across his chest and down his stomach.

“Alright Harrington.” Tommy mumbles as he passes Steve, opens the door and bolts.

Steve still stands there gaping.

They’re last to get changed, probably because of how long they took to leave the court, so the locker room is empty.

Empty and _quiet_.

Billy turns away and takes his sweat-soaked t-shirt off. “Hey.”

Steve makes a noise in his throat and opens his mouth.

“Look, I don’t know how much you heard, but that guy is a jerk.” Billy cuts him off. “ _I’m_ a jerk, but Tommy’s got me beat. He’s _next level,_ Steve.”

Steve comes up real close. His cheeks are flushed. His nose is pink. “Billy.” He states. And Billy half expects some rant, but Steve’s mouth just opens and closes a few times before he manages, “Thanks.”

And then Steve nods and heads for the showers.

Shit. The freaking showers.

Billy needs a fucking shower. And now he’ll need to take it right beside Steve,

They had _cubicles_ in Cali. Seriously, what’s a little extra spending for some privacy?

He slinks in quietly, tries not to make too much noise and starts the shower.

Steve is too busy lathering up his hair to take much notice. There’s a thin sheen of sweat all over his skin, but it gradually washes away with the stream of water as Steve’s body starts to pinken in the heat – his neck, his freckled shoulders, the thatch of hair across his sternum –

Steve ducks his head under the water and starts rinsing.

Fuck, Billy’s not even started _washing_.

He soaps up quick and scrubs at his hair with frantic hands, because the gates of the school will be fucking closed before he’s able to drag his eyes away from Steve Harrington.

He hears Steve turn the tap off and move away with wet feet.

Billy redoubles his efforts because he doesn’t want Steve to leave first, wants to at least make sure what just happened is _okay_ with Steve before Billy goes to his place for a nap.

He throws a towel around his hips and stalks over to his locker, but he shouldn’t have worried.

Steve is already dressed, towelling at his hair, sat on the bench waiting for Billy.

Something blossoms in Billy’s chest, and he can’t help smile at Steve when he notices that Steve waited.

Steve smiles back. “Hey. So my place is free all day and night. You can come over whenever.”

“Cool.” Billy shoves on his jeans even though he’s still soaked through, throws the towel over his shoulder and digs around for his shirt.

He’s searching when he feels a touch to his back, just fingers brushing his spine. 

Billy jerks around.

“Woah! Sorry, jumpy.” Steve laughs. “I was just gonna say – you’re shoulders are all hunched. You’ll probably get stiff. I can give you a massage, if you want?”

Billy stares.

Is this his fantasy walked out his head and come to life? Did he pass out and now he’s dreaming?

“It’s cool if not, it’s something athletes do to each other ya’ know –”

“No, I – yeah, that would be great.” Billy rushes. He rubs at his neck. “It’s been killing me, honestly.”

It’s not been killing him. It feels exactly the same as it always does.

Steve’s face brightens. “See, I could tell.”

Billy would agree to honestly anything Steve said as long as he made that face.

“You want me to stand here, or –”

“No, no, sit down.” Steve gestures to the bench. “Just there.”

Billy sits down slowly, a little wary. He tries not to show it.

Then Steve’s hands settle on Billy’s bare skin gently, and Billy has to press his mouth together so he doesn’t make any sounds.

Steve digs his thumb into the top of Billy’s spine.

Billy _groans_ , low and deep and from somewhere Billy didn’t even know _made_ sounds.

It’s like pleasure magnified by a thousand. It honestly feels similar to an orgasm. That’s all Billy can compare it to. The feeling, the _sharpness_ , the dizzying sense of that weird relief at just being touched in the first place, all combines to sucker punch Billy in the fucking _balls_.

Steve stops instantly. “Sorry, did that –”

“No, it’s good. It was good.” Billy croaks, rough and hoarse. Christ, he’s not even sure if he’ll survive this. It feels as if his skin has been asleep his whole life and now it’s only just waking up to sensation.

Steve places his hand back on Billy’s shoulder. The gentle brush of his palm tingles all the way throughout Billy’s body, and Billy bites his lip. Hard.

He presses his thumb in again.

Billy makes the exact same noise. 

Steve doesn’t stop this time though, presses into the ball of muscle at the top of Billy’s spine, and Billy feels his head loll back in delirium.

He chews at his lip and the inside his mouth until he can taste blood, clenches his jaw so hard his teeth hurt, but sounds _still_ manage to escape – soft grunts, punched out sighs, the slightest moan before it’s swallowed up by sheer force of will.

Steve make his way down Billy’s back, giving him sensations he never knew _existed_ , lighting him up in places that have never, _ever_ responded to touch in that way.

Steve’s hands are experts as they work out a knot of muscle until it’s lax and literally singing underneath Billy’s skin, before he moves onto the next part of muscle, another section of skin.

“Ah, Steve –” Billy blurts when Steve finds a particularly hard part of his spine, locked up from years of misuse and bad mattresses and shitty sleeps in cars and by God, is this what his back is actually meant to feel like? _Christ_.

Billy just assumed everyone’s back ached. It’s a back. It’s not meant to feel loose and relaxed and tingly. Billy feels as if he could melt right down to the floor.

“You good?” Steve murmurs, his voice low as if he doesn’t want to be too loud.

“Yeah.” Billy rasps with a nod, eyes squeezed shut. “Just.”

Steve’s hands hover over the worst section of Billy’s spine, as if afraid to touch.

“Careful.” Billy grits out, because he really doesn’t want Steve to actually _break_ his back and then he can’t get home.

“It won’t hurt.” Steve assures. “If it’s too stiff to budge then we can try again later but. I won’t hurt you.”

Billy nods wordlessly, trusting Steve, and keeps his eyes shut as Steve gently presses in.

There’s no pain. Something zings along his spine and Billy arches his whole back, breathless, _shocked_. Steve does it again, only with a little more pressure.

 _“Steve.”_ Billy gasps, can barely recognise his own voice.

“Fuck.” Steve whispers.

“Wh –” Billy tries to turn around, but Steve just digs in harder and Billy groans again, low and prolonged. But something else is happening, there’s something else seeping into Billy’s chest.

He can feel every single one of Steve’s fingertips where they’re holding him, both his thumbs working into the tight knotted ball in the middle of Billy’s spine.

But it’s Steve’s fingertips that are the issue. They’re holding onto him so gently. As if Billy’s something fragile. As if he’s something precious. It sounds ridiculous, _stupid_ , but it feels that way. He’s not massaging Billy hard and fast, working out the kinks as quick as humanly possible.

He’s taking the time to really touch Billy. Billy can’t remember when he was touched like this. That swoop of feeling happens again, the same one he’d felt at Steve’s house when Steve had sunk hands into his hair to check if he was injured. The one that makes Billy want to curl into a ball inside the safety of Steve’s arms.

Billy feels a strange wetness dripping off his jaw, lifts a hand and touches his cheek.

Tears. It’s tears.

He’s crying. Billy hadn’t even noticed.

Usually the burn of unshed tears clogs his throat and stings his eyelids. Usually Billy _knows_ when it’s happening – when it’s about to happen, when it might happen and when he needs to stop it.

He didn’t even get a warning. And now Steve’s massaging his back and Billy is crying. He doesn’t know how to stop it. He doesn’t even know _how_ it’s happening. His eyes are welling over and tears are spilling out, but it’s totally outwith Billy’s control.

“Billy?” Steve asks, because Billy hasn’t made any noise in his realisation.

Billy tries for a quiet sniff, wipes his jaw with the back of his hand. “Hm?” He might as well have just _sobbed_. His voice is so obviously choked that it sounds like he’s being strangled.

“Billy?” Steve’s voice has changed as well, and before Billy can even prepare himself Steve is moving around and crouching down in front of Billy.

Billy sucks in a startled breath and turns away. “Steve –”

“Woah, what’s wrong? Did it hurt? Why didn’t you say?” Steve places both his hands on Billy’s knees, the warmth of his palms soaking into Billy’s skin through his denim.

Billy swallows thickly, shakes his head. “It’s not – it didn’t.”

Some part of him wants to shrivel up and retreat, wants to throw walls up around himself in protection, wants to push Steve back and sneer and laugh.

But for some reason he can’t. Billy just … _can’t_. He’s tired, but not just groggy. The exhaustion is deep inside the marrow of his bones, coded into his DNA, and Billy is sick of fighting it.

For once his skin is loose and pliant, his muscles soft and supple. They’re no longer tense and stiff, it no longer _hurts_ , and Billy just wants to lie down and rest. He wants to pull Steve down with him.

“I.” Billy starts, runs a hand over his face and gives Steve a look. “If you tell _anyone_ –”

“Yeah, sure, course, no.” Steve babbles, eyes wide. “Was it something I pressed? Does it like, trigger tears or something? I heard that’s like, a karate move –”

“Steve.” Billy interrupts him.

Steve stops talking, stares at Billy with his mouth open.

Billy can’t help it. He laughs. “You’re such a _dumbass_ –”

“Hey!”

“In a good way.” Billy laughs, shaking his head. “You just – a _karate move?”_

Billy laughs while Steve purses his mouth, unimpressed. After a beat Billy realises he’ll have to tell Steve, and takes a breath as he tries to formulate what to say.

“It didn’t … _hurt_.” Billy assures. “It felt good. It was nice. So.” And Billy waves a hand, hopes that conveys what he means, hope Steve won’t make him spell it out.

“So … ?” Steve trails off.

Right. Of course. It’s Steve Harrington.

Billy needs to spell it out.

“You know you’re the definition of ‘ _just a pretty face’_ , Harrington.” Billy says drily. Because Jesus Christ, there is not one brain-cell in there.

Steve flushes hotly, clears his throat and huffs. “Billy. Can you just _explain_ –”

“Okay! So this is why that happened.” Billy gestures to his face a lot harder than before. “The … tears. Because.” Billy swallows. “It felt nice. Okay?”

Steve blinks, his expression slackening in understanding. “You mean … you cry when you feel good?”

Billy sighs, because that makes it sound a lot weirder than it is. “ _Yes_. Technically. But not like –”

“You cry during sex?” Steve concludes.

“What? _No_.” Billy gapes, appalled. “I mean I don’t fucking know! What the hell, Harrington?”

Steve gapes, his whole face red, until Billy abruptly realises what he’s just said.

_I don’t know._

“I mean.” Billy splutters.

“You’re.” Steve continues to gape.

“No!” Billy jumps to his feet. “I didn’t – I’m not – _FUCK!”_ Billy turns away and in a burst of anger, punches a locker.

It only ends up causing a whole _hell_ of a lot of pain, so Billy just stands there cursing and cradling his hand.

“Billy…” Steve tries, gently.

Billy doesn’t reply. He still needs to get changed. He shoulders past Steve and starts putting his clothes on, but it’s awkward because his hand hurts so much.

“Let me …” Steve pulls at his shoulder and tries to turn him around. He takes the sleeve of Billy's shirt that he’s struggling with and lifts it up like an offering.

Billy clenches his jaw and slides his arm into it.

Mortification coils inside his stomach, so bitter and pungent it almost feels like rage. Billy’s shoulders shake with it, and a harsh flush starts to seep across his chest, but he avoids Steve’s eyes and doesn’t say a word.

“Billy.” Steve murmurs.

Billy ignores him.

“I was just … surprised. I mean, nobody would suspect. Pretty strong cover –”

Billy gives Steve a flat look.

“Right.” Steve nods. “Sorry. Not the right thing to say.”

Billy just huffs and starts doing up his buttons.

If only Steve knew how much of a fucking _cover_ he really does put on.

“Look, I tend to … put my foot in it a lot.” Steve tries again. “Especially when I’m trying not to. But what I mean is … it’s cool. Almost everyone is in Hawkins. You know. Still a virgin.”

Billy grimaces at the word.

“It’s a small town, and nobody wants any rumours to spread.” Steve carries on. “Most people don’t give a _shit_ who’s still a virgin, it’s not something that’s cool to just add into normal conversation, I mean sure Tommy talks trash about sleeping around but he’s _Tommy_ , I mean he’s a _walking_ trashcan –”

“Steve.” Billy interrupts.

“Sorry.” Steve says quick. But Billy meets his eyes and smiles, just a tick of his mouth. He still appreciates that whole ramble Steve just gave him, even if he doesn’t exactly believe it.

It’s weird to be a virgin. At least in California it was weird. It _suggests_ stuff, and never anything nice. Either you’ve got a small dick or you’re gay.

Steve smiles back. “For what it’s worth.” He leans close and bumps his shoulder to Billy’s. “I’m kinda glad.”

And that’s … not what Billy expected to hear.

“What?” He blinks.

“I mean, you hang around with Tommy, you’ve always got a girl on your arm, I just figured …” Steve bites his lip with a smile, and Billy has _not_ seen that expression on Steve Harrington’s face before: coy and unsure and _fuck_.

“I guess I just figured you were like all those other guys.” Steve admits finally. He shrugs a shoulder. “But then I noticed you get all the answers in English right. And actually know what the hell you’re talking about. And even listened to Max after she asked you to stay away from us.” Steve clears his throat. “Until you came over to my house, and I thought … I don’t know, you were different. Then you stick up for me in front of Tommy. And _then_ I find out you’re not so much of a player after all. It’s like.” Steve laughs, ruffles his hair. “Do I even know the real Billy Hargrove?”

Billy tilts his head with a grin. “I don’t know, pretty boy, sounds more like you’ve been studying me.”

Steve pinkens all over, a pretty blush over his cheeks. “I’ve not been _studying_ you.”

Billy smiles. “Well. This is it. Billy Hargrove.” He gestures down to himself. “Take it or leave it.”

Steve grins. “I’ll take him.”

Billy flushes back, and then there’s a beat where they stand, looking at each other, smiling.

Normal people don’t do this, right? _Straight_ _people_ don’t do this. Billy’s never experienced it. Something dangerous that feels remarkably like _hope_ is filling Billy from the toes up.

“I’ll see you later, right?” Steve says, picks up his bag to leave.

“Later.” Billy promises, then Steve leaves.

Not before he claps Billy on the shoulder and gives him a squeeze. Billy stares at his shoulder for a while before he’s able to move.

“What took you?” Max asks when he opens the door to the Camaro, finally letting her in.

Billy smiles. “Nothing. Practise just ran over.”

Max gives him a wary look. “Alright. It’s cool, I’ll just tell Neil I had to speak to a teacher after class.” She starts to strap herself in.

Billy is struck with fondness then. “Hey.” He starts.

Max looks up.

Billy swallows the nerves gathering in his throat. “Wanna get a milkshake?”

Max blinks, stunned. “What?”

“They have a diner by the arcade, right?” Billy carries on, stomach fluttering. “Just an idea. Or I can drop you off.” He keeps his face carefully neutral. “Whatever.”

Max looks at him for a moment. “Okay.” She says, short and decisive. And then she frowns. “Don’t you have that thing you do, though?”

Billy grins as he reverses them. “It can wait.”

Max nods, sits back in silence.

“So.” Billy tries. _Christ_ , this is harder than he’d imagined. But a good night’s sleep and a back-rub does fucking wonders apparently, because Billy’s having a lot more success at this than the first couple times he tried.

Usually he attempted this kind of stuff after he felt shitty and took it out on Max. All he could offer her was a mix-tape or a drive – because fuck if Billy knows what fourteen year old girls want.

After a while Max stopped accepting though, so Billy stopped trying.

But he’s not done anything shitty lately. He’s offering because he wants to.

 _“So?”_ Max prods, eyebrows raised.

“Um.” Billy clears his throat. “How was school?”

“Fine.” Max replies, casual. “Except Mike and Dustin got into this whole argument about which Star Wars is the best –”

“Oh yeah?” Billy says.

“Yeah.” Max gives him a look like, _boys_. “So then …”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story keeps growing, and I've changed the chapter count because it's taking far too long to get these huge ass, 6-8K chapters out and I'd rather update frequently in shorter batches than in one massive load like this one. Either way, enjoy said load! Thanks so much to reading :)

Billy and Steve’s thing becomes something of a routine. A tradition. A ritual. A _thing._

He drops Max off at the arcade, or at the Wheeler’s or the Sinclair’s (and keeps his eyes cast down in awkward, embarrassed shame as he does), then heads on over to Steve’s.

Usually Steve is still out, and Billy steps in from the backdoor the way he always does. He heads on up the stairs, finds a room, and sleeps.

Sometimes he wakes up when Steve gets in, and goes downstairs to meet him.

Sometimes Steve wakes him up and they’ll have something to eat and shoot the shit about school.

Most of the time Steve leaves him to nap, and only wakes him when it’s time to get Max.

Some weeks Steve’s parents are back. Billy doesn’t like to think about those weeks. They’re usually over quickly and Billy goes back. He’s significantly less cranky those weeks, which he doesn't spend much time thinking about.

He only takes Steve up on his offer to sleep over at night a couple times. One time because the noises outside were louder than usual. And another time because Billy just couldn’t sleep.

But it’s not often. He doesn’t want a repeat of the first time, with the nightmares. Steve still sleeps on the sofa most of the time, because the few occasions Billy went over at night he was sprawled out across the couch, looking a lot more comfortable than before.

He still keeps his bat beside him. He's a weird guy.

Billy wonders for a brief moment why Steve doesn’t just use one of the sixty rooms in his house. And then he thinks that maybe he sleeps there _because_ of the sixty rooms in his house. And then he gets a hollow feeling in his gut, and doesn’t bring it up or think about it ever again.

Either way, he’s at Steve’s house almost every day. Some things he can’t get out of, like Max having a cold and missing school, so it would look weird if Billy stayed out late all by himself.

And then _Billy_ caught said cold. It was a sucker of a cold. Billy was floored for pretty much a whole week.

And then there was a random chipping noise at his window one night until Billy truly couldn’t ignore it anymore, rolled out of bed stiff and aching, and saw Steve Harrington stood outside his house.

He rolled up his window. “The hell are you doing?”

Steve’s face brightened immediately when he saw Billy.

Billy had to work really hard to squash the fluttery feeling in his chest at that.

“Just checking in!” Steve whispered up, smiling wide. “You haven’t been over in a few days.”

It was odd enough that Steve said that statement with a grin, because he didn’t sound angry but it’s definitely something _Billy_ would be angry at.

Dropped with no warning for a whole week. He’d shoulder past Steve without so much as a backward glance.

He swore under his breath. “Fuckin’ – I told _Max_ to let you know I was _sick_.”

Steve tilts his head like a puppy. “Oh yeah I know. She did. I just wanted to check in.”

And then Billy really did have to force himself not to combust. He channelled everything he was feeling into the appearance of anger. “Wh – you wake me at ass o’clock for _this?_ How come?”

Steve shrugged and swivelled his foot on the ground and looked every bit the charming prince. “Just cause. Anyways. Sleep well.” And then he saluted Billy and was on his way.

Billy climbed into bed in a bit of a haze that night, stared up at the ceiling and then rolled over and smiled into his pillow.

Anyways.

Other things Billy can’t escape is Neil being in a shittier mood than the usual shit mood he’s in. Billy doesn’t stay out late or sneak out on those nights just to avoid any fallouts. He thought about making up some party and going to Steve’s, but he couldn’t imagine that being any easier for Neil to swallow.

Usually they keep themselves to themselves. Billy knows the rules and he knows how to follow them. Neil doesn’t ever take it too far with his beatings, and never where anyone could see. It’s a backhand across the face, a shove up against the wall, but that’s as far as it gets unless Billy truly screws up.

Most of the time it’s the intimidation, the _threat_ of an oncoming slap, the horrible stink of coffee breath in his face that Billy deals with every day.

Maybe Neil just relishes in the expression across Billy’s face, the hatred-mingled-fear. Relishes in the control, the _power_.

But Billy plays basketball and he unbuttons his shirt and he’s got a reputation to uphold. Neil knows that. So he never leaves any marks. He never takes his anger out with his fists. Just his mouth: just harsh, spitting words.

Being slapped across the face by his dad at the age of seventeen is never fun either. It makes him feel small and shitty and pretty much worthless.

The words are worse though. The names, the sarcastic taunts, the belittling little remarks. Yeah. They’re a lot fucking worse. They stay. They leave their marks.

Apart from all that, apart from the whole fucking _mess_ that is his life, Billy shows up at Steve’s almost on a daily basis and Steve treats it like a normal occurrence. Like a totally mundane, expected event. Like he’s happy about it.

He smiles wide whenever he sees Billy, even if that’s in school with a whole crowd watching.

Billy can’t really get away with smiling in school, but he does try for a tip of his head, a polite nod. If his mouth ticks then it ticks.

People notice. People _talk_.

And then girls are flocking around Steve again. Billy ignores the hot stab of annoyance mingled with embarrassing jealousy, pretends that his crankiness is just due to Steve being his opponent now. Steve scoffs at that. He doesn’t seem to take the girls too seriously either. Laughs them off with a charming smile and a careless word.

Tommy still seems to have a stick up his ass. Billy can’t seem to guess why. Maybe Steve fucked Carol one time and Tommy’s not over it.

Some part of Billy really wishes that’s the case, because wouldn’t that be _hilarious_ , and envisioning Tommy’s reaction makes Billy want to laugh.

The rest of Billy really, really wishes that isn’t the case. He knows Steve isn’t some blushing virgin – unlike someone Billy can think of – and he’s made his peace with it, but really, the notion of Steve with _anyone_ puts his lungs through a meat grinder. So there’s also that.

The part about Billy being over at Steve’s house a whole hell of a lot? Yeah. He’s over _a lot._

If Billy didn’t know any better, he’d call Steve Harrington his best friend. Which is just about the wildest turn of events to Billy looking for a place to crash that Billy could’ve ever imagined.

“You can thank me for your newfound notoriety later.” Billy leans against the locker next to Steve’s.

Steve turns with raised eyebrows as he unloads his books, impressed. “ _Notoriety?_ Good word.”

Billy tips his head in mock-grace and tries not to smile too wide. He is still in school, after all.

“And also, you do realise you’re speaking to the King Steve here?” Steve gestures to himself, all tease.

“Oh yeah, baby.” Billy smirks. Steve blushes, the way he always does when Billy uses that word. “We’re gonna take this town by storm.”

“Why do you call everyone that?” Steve asks instead, flits his eyes to Billy’s face for a moment before he glances away.

“What?” Billy frowns. “Baby?”

Steve nods, focusing on his books.

“Just a California thing.” Billy says, shrugs. “Pisses the guys off when you use it on the court. Just trash talk. Just brings a little extra heat.”

Steve hums, doesn’t say much.

Billy wonders if he’s overstepped. “Hey, I’ll stop using it –”

“No, it’s fine.” Steve rushes. “It’s just not a thing people say in Hawkins. Unless you’re dating the person.”

Billy swallows against a rising blush. “Right. Definitely stop using it then.” He aims for a laugh, but it’s throaty and awkward.

Steve blinks, and then he nods jerkily. “Yeah, sure, if you want.”

There’s a beat.

“Coming over later?” Steve asks. He closes his locker. 

“Sure.” Billy says. “Starving. Got food?”

“Yup.” Steve smiles. This is familiar territory. “Got lots. Mom did a shop when she was back.”

Billy groans, imagining all the _food_ , his mouth already dry.

Steve laughs. He claps Billy on the shoulder, gives him a squeeze. “See you half three?”

“I’ll be there, pretty boy.” Billy assures with a grin.

Steve pinkens again, until he grins and says, “Look forward to it, gorgeous.”

Billy’s mouth drops open. “Huh?” He chokes. It feels like his heart is trying to push its way up his throat.

Steve’s smile widens. “Trash talk. Right?”

Billy can’t close his mouth, even after Steve holds his arms out and walks away.

Wonderful. So that’s a thing he just invented, and subsequently has to suffer through.

*

It starts as just a casual comment, a passing remark down the hallway or in the locker room. ‘Hey there handsome’, ‘What’s cookin’, good lookin’?”

Billy always whips his head around, clearly projecting, _‘me?’_ Before Steve laughs, his eyes crinkled, shakes his head and walks away.

Billy’s always prided himself in being aloof and indifferent. In holding onto his composure and maintaining the tough guy look. He’s always been able to grin and sneer and posture.

Plus the logical part of his brain knows that Steve’s just teasing, trying to rankle Billy after all the times Billy rankled him, pay him back for when he embarrassed Steve in front of a whole class.

He knows Steve means well: even better, he knows Steve doesn’t actually mean it at all _._ It’s a joke. It’s funny. People raised their eyebrows at first, seem almost _scared_ , but after a while they grin alongside Steve whenever Billy is called another term of endearment.

And yet the illogical part of Billy lurches inside whenever he hears Steve call him one of those pet-names, whenever he looks up to Steve walking past with a satisfied grin like a cat who got the cream. He flushes, stammers and trips, as if Steve Harrington is the one kryptonite to all his self-defences.

After a minute he’s able to regain himself, able to snarl something back, but the damage is already done. People are already starting to take him less seriously, which Billy isn’t all that torn up about as long as he keeps his popularity. The popularity still sticks – in fact it seems like it _increases_. Steve and Billy become something of a duo around school, The Two Kings, and neither of them pretend they aren’t loving it.

And Billy gets it. He does. He knows Steve is giving Billy a taste of his own medicine. Trying to show him how it feels to be teased and taunted. It makes sense. It’ll _stop_ soon.

Until it grows into something Steve says when they’re in private.

Just them. Nobody else.

Billy climbs down the stairs, sleep-fuddled with a wrinkled shirt and messy hair because he heard Steve come home, and Steve smiles from the kitchen where he’s buttering his toast. “Yo there, gorgeous.”

That’s a personal favourite of his. The _gorgeous_. Billy can’t even remember when Steve used his actual name. It’s as if floodgate opened and now all he calls Billy are freaking _compliments_.

He’s never said it when they’re alone, though.

Billy blushes to the roots of his hair. “Oh, uh – hey.” He rubs his eye while he walks over. He doesn’t return the pet-name, too groggy to make it sound like a joke right now. “Uh.” He sees some plates in the dish rack and gets on them immediately, picking up a cloth and wiping them down for lack of anything better to do.

This is what he does when he comes to Steve’s now: he tidies.

At first it was more of an instinct – if Steve left something lying on the sofa, didn’t put something back in it’s proper place, Billy automatically corrected him.

But as he started coming to Steve’s more and more, as it became a _daily thing_ , Billy felt like he needed to repay Steve somehow. It didn’t feel enough that he’d just apologised and now they were friends. He needed to do more, he needed to show his thanks. He needed to say _thank you._

The first time Billy picked up the dishes, Steve basically hip-checked him out the way, waggled a finger and told him in no uncertain terms _that’s not happening pal, no siree_. But Billy persisted. Gradually, Steve gave in. It was a slow process, a long arduous task of telling Steve that no, Billy doesn’t have to and _yes_ , he totally understands he doesn’t have to and _yes_ , he actually wants to do this.

He pretends to Steve that he’s some kind of neat freak, which in all honesty will only hold up for so long because … well it’s just not true, but. Billy _does_ enjoy it, weirdly.

It’s nice to unclutter Steve’s cluttered-up space, to wash the dishes they’ve just ate and start stacking them away into their various cupboards. To live in a lived-in space that feels safe and comfortable and _easy_. To put a plate on the coffee table with the knowledge that Billy could pick it up later or leave it there and it wouldn’t make a difference.

The part that Billy likes about cleaning is just the part where he knows he doesn’t have to.

It seems like Steve has resigned himself to Billy being his personal cleaner. Not that Steve is untidy, just lazy. Lazy in the sense where he’s lived most of his life alone and was never really obligated to tidy up after himself because the only person to hold him responsible, to deal with his mess and put away his stuff, was … _him_.

“You hungry?” Steve asks as Billy dries the dishes. They’re dishes from last night, but it makes Billy warm that Steve washed them. As if he knew Billy would and wanted to save him the hassle. Steve doesn’t seem to clean up for himself, but he does for Billy.

He wonders what it would be like if they lived together. If they would each take up some of the chores –

Billy needs to distract himself from that line of thought. “Sure.” He answers with a smile. “What you got?”

So Steve opens up some macaroni, boils a pot of water while Billy makes up the sauce and Steve wrinkles his nose because he’s never seen cheese sauce made from scratch.

They work together in companionable silence though. Billy hums under his breath, movements easy and familiar as he sorts them dinner even though it’s only half three in the afternoon. It doesn’t matter what time it is. It never seems to matter when he’s with Steve.

There’s a click, the blink of a flash.

Billy tuns to find Steve with a camera in his hands, fiddling with the lens and hiding his face.

Billy stares. “Wh – did you just take a _picture_ of me?”

Steve purses his mouth and shrugs. “Yeah.”

Billy’s face heats up by a thousand degrees.

Steve took a picture of him. Just Billy. Billy and the pot of sauce he’s stirring in Steve Harrington’s kitchen.

“Why?” He laughs. The sound is rough, mostly bewildered, a little touched. Billy doesn’t think he’s ever made that sound in all his life.

Steve shrugs again, avoids his eyes, fiddles with his camera still. “Just cause.”

 _Just cause._ He said that the night he came to Billy’s window to check up on him. Just cause.

Billy thinks about laughing again, scoffing, making some joke. But he doesn’t want to do that.

Most of the time Billy does things he doesn’t want to do. So this one specific time he’s going to do what he wants.

“Well take a better one.” Billy says.

Steve blinks, tilts his head. “What?”

Billy turns the gas down and lifts the pot, holds the spatula up to his mouth and strikes a pose, hip out, grin wide.

Steve laughs, pulls his camera up, and snaps a shot.

Billy knows he’s not looking his best. His hair is flat and slept on, his shirt is all rumpled and he’s holding a goddamn pot of _macaroni cheese sauce_ , but Steve still beams wide and steps closer, takes another one.

“Wh – I wasn’t ready!” Billy complains, and Steve snaps again. _“Steve!”_ Billy puts down the pot and pretends to wield the spatula like a weapon, but Steve just keeps taking pictures of him, laughing while he does.

Billy has the most absurd urge to cover his face – which he’s never felt, ever, even when Neil is pressed right up into it and threatening to mash it out of shape. He’s wanted to fight back, to scream and most of the time fucking run away, but never cover his face. But it’s not fear he feels, not even shame or discomfort – it’s shyness. He feels _shy_.

If Steve is doing this though, then Billy’s going all in. He’s not hiding away like some pre-teen girl and squealing for Steve to stop. He’s pretty sure there’s nothing that screams _I have a crush on you_ more.

Billy goes for the fruit bowl, picks up a tomato and holds it in an open palm, points to it like, _woah!_

Steve laughs harder.

Billy takes a massive bite and bares all his teeth in a gross smile. Steve is wheezing, near silent, but the camera continues to blink.

Billy puts a fist on his hip and a fist to the air like a superhero, really just making them up at this point, and it’s then that Steve takes one last one and stops with a laugh.

"I'm definetely getting these developed." He states.

Billy just laughs. “We should get back to the macaroni.”

"Oh." Steve states, and Billy looks at where his gaze is.

 _“Shit.”_ Billy hisses and rushes for the pot. The cheese is all stuck to the bottom, and the pasta that Steve had been cooking has boiled over.

“We can still fix it.” Billy fiddles with the dials on the cooker.

“Billy, it’s fine. We can just order in.” Steve assures.

“No.” Billy says, because he doesn’t want to waste the first meal the ever cooked together, and he freaking _hates_ wasting food in general. “Look, get me some water and I’ll fix it.”

Steve gets him some water, and Billy fixes it.

It’s a little dry and overcooked, not the best macaroni he’s ever made by far, but they sit on the sofa with their plates and chew while they speak and at first Steve scrunches his nose up which just makes Billy chew harder in stubborness, which just makes Steve laugh more.

Eventually they’re side by side in the kitchen again as Billy scrubs the dishes while Steve dries. Billy passes Steve them one by one after he’s done, and their fingers bump on accident sometimes which just makes Billy flush all the way down to his toes. Billy briefly wonders if it might be less awkward with music, but the prefers the quiet companionship anyway, the soft smile on Steve’s face he ducks his head to hide.

He can’t remember the last time he had this, the domestic joy of washing dishes with someone, and wonders if maybe Steve feels the same. Maybe.

Sure enough, Steve was telling the truth.

The next day after school, Billy arrives at Steve's door and Steve beckons him over, a stack of them in his hands.

“Oh my God, they're amazing!” He says.

Billy leans close to see.

He sees himself in all those silly positions from yesterday, expression open, _happy_.

Billy can’t help but laugh, just out of the sheer strangeness at seeing himself look like that.

“That’s one my favourite.” Steve says with absolute certainty, while shows the one with Billy’s mouth full of tomato, eyes wide, grin manic. “That one’s my favourite of all time.”

Billy freezes up, his laughter cut off. He turns to look at Steve and realises how close they’ve gravitated in both peering at the photos.

Steve whips his head up, mouth open, but he seems to realise the same thing Billy just did. He blinks his clear Bambi eyes, silent. There’s a beat where neither of them say anything.

Billy feels as if he’s being boiled, somehow, not in a way he can explain but in a way he undeniably _feels_. It’s the strangest fucking thing, like all the blood is rushing to his head while he’s slowly losing oxygen or some shit, because it’s true, those romance novels weren’t wrong – it’s just that Billy’s never had a chance to experience it until _Steve fucking Harrington_.

He’d be worried he’s having some kind of medical condition if it weren’t for the fact he’s staring into Steve’s eyes, inches away from his face, counting Steve’s freckles and watching his throat work and seeing the blush creep along his neck. Is this what it feels like to be close to another human being? Billy’s been close to plenty before and it’s never been like this. He’s learning at lot of shit in Hawkins, Indiana, apparently. No wonder the girls go crazy when Steve puts on the charm, leaning into them all sly. Billy would probably flop to the floor.

“I’m.” Steve starts. His voice is hoarse. “I meant.” He trails off, gives a dry chuckle.

“Yeah.” Billy chuckles back, and the moment breaks, the weird spell that was just cast over them dissipates.

For a moment Billy thought — not thought, he’d maybe entertained — but that’s impossible. Steve doesn’t feel that way. He _can’t_. And anyway, if he did he’d be laying it on thick, all charming grins and sweeping of his hair.

Billy’s seen Steve flirt enough by now to know what it looks like.

So they watch TV, eat dinner, chat some more, and soon it’s time to get Max again. Billy lingers as he always does, but Steve is used to this. He seems to sense it, smiles after the last plate is put away. “Need to go?”

“Yeah.” Billy says, and coughs because that sounded _way_ too sad and pathetic. Jesus.

“I have something for you.” Steve says, and then he’s dashing away somewhere.

Billy blinks.

He doesn’t even have time to reply before Steve is back, thrusting out a hand and giving Billy …

“A walkie?” Billy frowns, turns it round in his hands.

“Yup.” Steve nods. “I have one here, so we can talk back and forth.”

Billy feels his eyebrows raising almost involuntarily. “We can talk ... more than we do every day?” He’s smiling though, because damn if that’s not the sweetest fucking thing ever.

Steve rolls his eyes, though his cheeks are pink. “No, I mean – if you can’t make it over, then you can let me know instead of getting Max to tell me.”

And that. Makes more sense, yeah.

“Right.” Billy says. He looks down at it. “So I just –”

Steve holds up a finger, and then he dashes away again.

There’s a beat, and then his walkie crackles. “Hello?” Steve’s unmistakable voice comes though. There’s a weird echo to it, because Billy can both hear him out in the hall and also coming through the walkie.

Billy peers at it. “Hi?”

Steve’s voice comes through the thing laughing. “No – you need to press the button on the top.”

Billy presses the button. “Hi.” He states, unimpressed.

Steve laughs again, and then he comes back into the room. “You got it.”

“Steve, what is this for?” Billy frowns. “We talk all the time.” That admission is _weird_ , and not a sentence Billy ever thought he’d say, but there it is.

Steve shrugs. “Just cause.”

“You keep say–”

“You better go!” Steve throws his wrist up. “Look at the time!”

Billy leaves then, because he’s wasted enough time with Steve and he knows Max gets cranky when she needs to wait for longer than five minutes.

He speeds over to the arcade and sure enough, Max is waiting, arms crossed. She gets in the car without a word.

And then she sees the walkie talkie on his lap.

Billy expects her to ask him where he got it. So he’s not exactly prepared for Max to cross her arms again and say, “When did you become best friends with Steve Harrington?”

Billy gapes. “Wh – yuh –”

“Don’t try and deny it.” Max tosses her head. “A, I know you go somewhere when I’m at the arcade and Steve’s house is always empty. _B,_ you and Steve have both been weirdly happy and I heard from Mike that his sister Nancy told him Steve told her that you’re –”

“I’m fuckin’ lost.” Billy says.

“ _Steve_ said that you’re fine now and C, you’ve got his spare walkie talkie.”

Now it’s Billy’s turn to frown. “How do you this is Steve’s?”

Max shrugs. “He babysits us sometimes. Just for Joyce or Mike’s mom. He uses the walkies so he knows where we are at all times.”

Billy feels his eyes bulge. “So I’m a part of that equation now?” _What the hell?_ Does Steve think he’s _babysitting_ Billy? Is that what all this is?

“Not – _we_ had the walkies first so we could talk to each other and then we gave Steve one and now Steve uses them to keep track of us and he gave _you_ one, so.” Max widens her eyes.

“So?” Billy tries, unhelpfully.

“You’re like his best friend now!”

Billy stares. “I really don’t think –”

“Come on, Billy, you know I’m way smarter than this!” Max throws her hands up. “You guys are best friends, just admit it!”

“Maybe!” Billy shouts, flushed and flustered. “I – I don’t know Max!”

“How can you _not_ know?” Max snipes. “You guys are –”

Billy’s patience runs dry, runs out, and then it just snaps. “Because I’ve never fuckin’ had one!” He shouts.

There’s a beat.

“Okay?” Billy states. He pulls up outside the house and just sit there, waiting for Max to get out.

Max doesn’t get out.

“I mean, me neither.” She murmurs. “Not before Lucas and everyone.”

Billy feels a stab somewhere in-between his ribs. He swallows, breathes slow and even.

“You just … you have to put up with them wanting to hang out all the time. Maybe them being annoying. And something about never lying. Friends don’t lie. And that’s it. That’s how you know you’ve got a best friend.”

Billy doesn’t say anything. He gives a silent nod, his hands fisted around the steering wheel. Max gets out and goes into the house. Billy stays there for a second before he follows her.

*

Over the next couple days, Billy makes the most out of the walkie talkie.

“Yo, Harrington.”

There’s a crackle of static, and nothing more.

Billy taps his foot, waits a beat, and presses the button again. “ _Harrington_.”

The walkie comes to life. “Billy? What’s up? Is everything okay?” Steve rounds rushed, frantic.

Billy grins. “Nothin’s up.” He says sweetly. “Me and Max are picking up some groceries. Won’t be over tonight I’m afraid.”

“Oh.” Steve says. Billy doesn’t need to see him to be able to hear the disappointment. Billy’s grin widens.

“Whatcha’ up to?” Billy asks, just to keep the conversation going. He knows he won’t get his fill of Steve Harrington today, but this is close enough.

“Well I just got out the shower.” Steve replies.

Billy feels his vision go dizzy with heat.

“You –” He tries.

“I kind of just ran when I heard the walkie going.” Steve chuckles. “So I’m currently searching for a towel.”

Billy swallows.

It feels like it gets stuck somewhere in his throat.

It’s not as if he hasn’t seen Steve naked before – the idea isn’t exactly _new_ to Billy, he’s been dealing with it on the daily during basketball practise.

But other than that first conversation – the first proper conversation they’d had – where Billy focused on the side of Steve’s head with a sneer to avoid looking anywhere else, all the while thinking _fuck, this is a really pretty boy_ until it actually came out his mouth, they haven’t spoken when either one of them is naked.

It’s just not the done thing. It breaks some code of conduct between men, which is what Billy had been trying to do the first time.

Now though, now that they’re actually _friends,_ they don’t talk in the showers. They just wash and dress as silent and quick as possible, and then they talk afterwards.

Even though Billy can’t actually _see_ Steve, the knowledge that Steve is buck ass naked and just casually chatting away has Billy hot under the collar.

“I, uh – I guess I’ll let you change.” Billy stutters, and it’s awkward, he’s made it so incredibly awkward, _Christ_.

“It’s cool, I can multitask.” Steve replies, and Billy thinks _well I fucking can’t_. His cheeks burn with warmth.

“I – Max wants something, sorry.” Billy says, and then he releases the button.

It’s not true, obviously. Billy came out for a smoke and left Max to pick whatever she wanted. It’s not as if he’d come running at Max’s beck and call either, but whatever. Hopefully it’ll hold up. Billy can’t really picture Steve figuring it out anyway.

Billy lifts a shaking cigarette up to his mouth as he huffs a laugh. Sure, Billy loves the stupid idiot but he’s really –

He’s hallway through an inhale before he registers that thought.

Billy chokes on a cough, doubles over on his stomach as he splutters. _What the fuck? What the FUCK? What the fuck whatthefuck **whatthefuck** –_

“Yo.” Max says, a perfect imitation of him. She holds up the groceries. “You ready to go? I told you one of these days those things are gonna kill you.”

Billy gasps a sharp breath, throws himself into the Camaro and grits his teeth. It’s not happening. It didn’t happen. It can’t happen. Billy’s not in love with Steve Harrington. That’s just –

“Are you okay?” Max asks, eyebrows high. She’s getting a lot more confidant in asking that now. “You kind of look more pissed off than usual.”

Maybe before Billy would have barked an insult, thrown a fit and gone crazy. Now though, all he can do is shake his head. “Lotta stuff on my mind, Max.”

Max seems to take it, thankfully, and she goes into the house and starts unloading all the food.

Billy races up to his room, closes the door and leans against it. He breathes for a beat, tries to calm the racing of his heart. He closes his eyes and tries to think of something else, anything else, but all that’s coming to mind is Steve’s stupid face and his smile and being an inch apart on the sofa as they eat hard macaroni and Billy’s heart feeling like it was three sizes too big for some reason, like it somehow didn’t fit anymore, and Christ he’s in love with Steve.

Billy is in love with Steve. Of course he’s in love with fucking Steve Harrington. Of course he’s in love with the preppy golden boy. _Of course_ Billy Hargrove fell for the straightest man in existence, who also just so happens to be his newfound best-friend and place to crash.

It’s not as if Billy didn’t see the signs. Didn’t notice that hey, this crush feels particularly weird and intense and soul-crushing. Didn’t notice that Steve made him laugh louder and warmer than he’d ever heard himself laugh, or that Steve’s touch seeps through into his stomach and keeps him full for days.

“Perfect.” Billy lifts his hands, scrubs his hair. “Just fucking _perfect_.” He kicks his desk, feels a fresh hot anger boil up in his chest before it evaporates, dissipates, and he sinks to the floor.

He just sits there, head in his hands, eyes dry, staring at a point on the floor.

“Billy!” Max calls. “Can you turn the stove on?”

Billy swallows. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. He’ll just carry on like usual. Everything’s _fine_.

Billy stalks down the stairs and fixes the stove.

“Woah, what happened to your hair?” Max asks.

Billy reaches over and ruffles her long hair. “Me? What about you? Huh?”

Max laughs, ducks to escape him, but Billy catches her and messes her up some more.

*

It’s the weekend. Max it out with her band of boys and Neil and Susan are somewhere, Billy doesn’t know, hopefully dropping off the face of the earth.

So Billy has the whole house to himself. Usually he’d take this opportunity to make the absolute fucking _most of it_ : cook whatever the hell he likes, kick his feet up on the sofa, do some basketball practise and lift some weights, have a hot bath afterwards, truly indulge himself, and sure, _maybe_ he’d jack off in the process, he’s a teenager and there’s only so much more of Steve’s pretty lips Billy can endure without combusting in class.

It’s for the good of humanity, actually.

Most of the time Billy is sloppy and quick with that stuff, late at night into a spare tissue, soundless and holding his breath until the very last second where he releases a sigh, even and measured.

If there’s a noise, a slight creak down the hall, Billy will stiffen straight as a board and feel his heartbeat jack into overdrive, but it’s always pointless. Nobody ever comes in, and Billy knows for sure he’s never loud enough to arouse suspicion.

Still. Billy needs the exact conditions to be favourable in order to let loose a little and give himself more than one minute tops.

He needs everyone _at least_ a mile away and for a confirmed period of one hour before he takes longer than sixty seconds. The sad truth is that Billy usually gets so excited by the news everyone is out at the weekend that when everyone actually _does_ leave, he’s wound so tight he only lasts about two minutes.

It’s pathetic enough that he’d never admit to it out loud, and if Billy ever _does_ actually get with a guy, at any point in his life, he’s going to need to learn some stamina or die trying because really, that’s not happening.

Anyway. This particular weekend Billy isn’t doing any of that shit.

Because of course he’s going to Steve’s.

Steve’s having a party, or what he likes to call a party and Billy just calls a gathering of the various children and teenagers he knows. It’s only going to be Billy, Jonathan, Nancy, and ‘The Party’. Their word, not his.

Billy gets it though, he does: Steve’s trying to gather them all together to help Billy integrate into the group and also tell people that _hey, Billy’s here to stay._

Billy’s so fucking touched that he’s washed, shaved, and dressed in all his best stuff. He’s also crapping himself – and he blames Max and Steve for softening that sentence, because supposedly if he’s going to hang with a bunch of ten year old's he needs to ‘cool it with the cursing’.

So Billy’s going round to Steve’s early to help him set up. They’re making snacks and all sorts of shit, but Billy knows it won’t really take that long and honestly it’s just an excuse for them to chill before everyone comes. Or at least for _Billy_ to chill.

Sometimes it feels like Steve can read him freakishly well, because it was him that suggested Billy come beforehand.

Whatever. Billy still isn’t thinking about anything. There’s nothing happening. It’s the same as it’s always been. He’s got a massive crush on Steve because Steve is hot but as soon as they graduate Billy is out of here the way he’d always planned. No looking back. Not for a second.

Billy’s climbing into the Camaro when he hears it.

It’s like a thunk, but heavier.

Billy pauses. He stills.

“Hello?”

He looks around the garage. Everything seems the same.

The noise comes again.

Billy closes the door to the Camaro slowly, creeps closer to where he’s hearing it.

It sounds like it’s coming from the basement, but the door down to there has been locked ever since they moved in. The key is still in, but nobody's tried going down. 

The thud comes again, a strange shuffling.

It's got to be an animal. A raccoon, maybe? Do they _get_ raccoons in Hawkins? Fuck, Billy's such a city boy.

He looks around, finds a spare shovel propped against the wall and picks it up. Billy glances down at it and snorts.

He looks ridiculous. As if it’s going to be anything bigger than a freaking squirrel. He’s not going to need to _fight_ the thing.

He taps the shovel against the door to the basement and waits.

There’s nothing. Just a beat of silence, stillness.

Then there’s noise.

It’s like a growl, low and threatening. But it's also something else. It doesn't sound like any growl _Billy's_ ever heard.

Billy takes a step back, quick and fumbling.

His heart kicks up pace, ice-cold fear tightening his spine along his back. Fuck. That doesn’t sound like a fucking _squirrel_. What the shit?

He readjusts his grip on the shovel, thinks _here goes nothing_ , and unlocks the door to the basement.

The door swings wide, and then.

And then.

The fuck. The fucking _fucking **fuck**._

It’s – a _thing_ , it’s a fucking thing but it’s not, what the shit, what the shit whattheshit–

“What the shit.” Billy squeaks, high and shrill.

It’s – Billy doesn’t fucking _know_ _what it is_ and he’s pretty sure his eyes, fuck he’s pretty sure his _brain_ hasstopped working. It looks like an emaciated skeleton, like a fucking – _walking_ emaciated skeleton.

It’s a **_skeleton._**

It stumbles into the wall, scrambles to right itself, weak and sluggish until it notices Billy and then fucking – _turns_ , no eyes no nose no freaking _nothing_ on it’s face, it’s fucking – it can’t even – _Billy_ can’t even–

Its face opens and screams.

The scream comes out it’s _fucking face._

“WHAT THE SHIT!” Billy cries, white-hot terror freezing him in place.

It takes a step forward, screams louder, and Billy screams louder, but Christ now he hears it he knows: _that’s_ the screech, that’s the fucking motherfucking screech Billy’s been hearing this whole time, it’s this freaky thing in his basement that’s been keeping him awake.

The thing comes closer again and its face is made up of _teeth_ , its whole face is a _mouth_ , so Billy swings the shovel high and feels the crunch of skull on impact.

It goes down with a clap, the body crumpled at an awkward angle.

Black liquid seeps from its head, makes a pool on the pristine garage floor.

Distantly, Billy knows he’ll have to clean that up.

But for the moment, all he does is stare and stare and _stare_ until it’s been at least five minutes and the thing hasn’t moved.

He steps closer to inspect.

He nudges it with a foot. It doesn’t react. He nudges harder.

The thing shifts over onto its back.

Billy jerks away.

Its face is still open. That's definitely not a species of raccoon Billy’s ever fucking seen.

Alien. An alien? _Is_ it an alien? Are they real? Is this confirmation of alien life? In their shitty little basement of Hawkins, Indiana, nowhere part of the earth? 

Billy must stand there, stiff, shovel in hand, for about ten minutes before he realises he needs to do something. Fuck, he needs to get rid or it or tell someone or get help or _do something._

He rushes to the Camaro and scrambles for the walkie-talkie. He presses the button. “Steve?”

There’s a crackle, a beat, and then: “Yo! What’s taking ya?”

“Steve.” Billy presses his forehead to the top of his car. He takes a breath. 

“What’s wrong?” Steve’s voice is different: dark and serious within the span of a second.

“I –” Billy tries and just barks a laugh, hysteria-tinged and embarrassingly high. “There’s." He closes his eyes, shakes his head. "If I wasn’t _looking_ at it, I don’t think you’d believe me. I don’t think _I’d_ believe me.”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a second. Billy opens his mouth to try and further explain.

“It’s –” Is as far as he gets.

“I’m coming.” Steve replies.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is shorter than the previous updates, but if I aimed to have an update as long as the last this might be a week late, so I thought I'd blast this one out. 
> 
> Want to thank everyone for the reception to the last chapter :) I appreciate every comment and reply as you all know, because the best part of fandom from me is the response and the feedback. Thank you all for your kind and lovely words <3 
> 
> Also Billy becoming part of the gang is a totally original idea I came up with on my own, I was by myself and I thought wow, what a cool and unique idea I have just come up with all by myself. With just my brain.

Billy paces the garage with his thumbnail between his teeth, four steps left and four steps right. Rinse and repeat.

Steve is taking _a fucking while_ , and he doesn’t live that fucking far away.

The irrational part of Billy is screaming that Steve might have woke up with one of those things in his garage too, he might not have a shovel, and he’s also a _piss-poor_ fighter, Billy knows from experience, and what the fuck what if he’s actually –

The familiar sound of an approaching engine startles him.

Billy’s head jerks up straight away.

He sprints out the garage and turns to shut the door – so the neighbours don’t see a freaking monster – before he looks around.

Only to find Steve tumbling out the driver’s side and … _a child_ tumbling out the passenger.

“Wh –” Is as far as Billy manages.

“Are you okay?” Steve rushes up, grips Billy’s shoulders tight and searches his face.

Billy is so startled all he does is blink, wide-eyed.

Steve pulls Billy into his arms.

Billy is stiff and awkward, too surprised to do anything of significance – like freaking _hug back,_ maybe, or unstiffen his joints enough to enjoy it.

Steve’s arms are strong and secure around him, squeezing him hard and proper. His chest is pressed to Billy’s chest, warm and weirdly familiar.

It lasts for a second, a _second_ of a second, before the kid that tumbled out the car comes barging on up.

“Steve.” He states, with something like a lisp. It’s hard to tell. He’s also currently glaring at them both. “Are we doing this?”

“Oh.” Steve says right into Billy’s ear, and then he pulls back quickly, straightens Billy up with a flush. “Um.”

“Doin’ what?” Billy asks, frowning. Steve’s hands are still on him. It’s disconcerting. And distracting. And … other words that start with d, Billy supposes. He doesn’t know. He can’t really fucking think.

“I asked _you guys_ to come here.” Billy continues, once he’s managed to untangle his tongue to speak.

“Yeah, well that’s – yeah.” Steve blusters, stands back and waves a hand around like he usually does when he doesn’t know the answer in class, or he’s flustered by something. Or both those things combined.

“Steve.” Billy starts slowly, because something very, very weird is clicking into place. “Do you – fuckin’ _know_ what I’m about to show you?”

Steve gives him those wide, Bambi eyes. “I – I mean, not unless what you’re about to show me is not the thing I think it is.”

Billy’s face spasms. _“What?”_

The kid heaves a sigh. “Can you just show us?”

Billy rounds on him. “Hey. Who invited you?” But he turns to Steve when he says that too, gives him a questioning look.

Billy distinctly remembers talking to _Steve_. He remembers asking _Steve_ to come. And some hot little part of him is hurt that Steve brought along spectators, as if Billy’s crisis is somehow a live show.

“He was at my house.” Steve explains. “His parents were out so he was helping me set up. I couldn’t leave him. There’s nobody to look after him.”

“I don’t need _looked after_.” The kid says.

The hot little ball inside Billy unravels, dissolves. Billy suddenly realises how stupid he’s being. He’s essentially jealous of a _child._

“Right.” Billy says, relaxing. “Um. Okay.” He runs a hand through his hair, uncaring that it leaves it dishevelled and out of place. “I –”

How does he word this without sounding crazy? He could just _show_ Steve.

“Okay, I – Steve, can you just come back here?” Billy motions.

“What? Why don’t I get to see?” The kid puts hands on his hips in an eerie imitation of Steve.

“It’s not really something I’d wanna show a kid.” Billy snarks back, but it’s true. Some shit little kids just don’t need in their life – and the fucking _thing_ in his garage is definitely one of them. Whatever the hell it is.

This kid, though, just gives him some more of the eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”

“Dustin, just.” Steve sighs, and _that’s_ the kid’s name. “Stop, okay. I’m gonna –”

“Steve, I know you think Billy is the best thing since –” Dustin starts.

Steve flushes total beetroot, makes a high-pitched noise and does a flurry of motions that all seem to signify _nonononono._

Billy stares in open-mouthed glee. Steve pointedly doesn’t look at him. He chooses to glare at Dustin, evidently attempting to communicate via wordless eye-contact.

Dustin gives Steve a hard stare, and then he huffs. “Alright. Fine.”

Steve nods and then without a word he starts stalking to the garage. It’s closed though, so he crosses his arms and waits for Billy to come on over.

Billy takes his sweet, sweet time. He grins with his tongue between his teeth as he opens up. “What’s this you’ve been saying about me, pretty boy?”

Steve is still red. “Had to get them to come around to you somehow.” He states. “Maybe embellishing the truth a little was the only way how.”

Billy still grins, unperturbed. “Sure, sure.” He says and he pulls the garage door up, almost forgetting why they’re here in the first place.

Until Steve stops dead in his tracks.

Just freezes up. Arms, legs, face, all frozen.

Billy doesn’t look at it. He keeps his eyes on Steve. “Yeah. It ain’t pretty. I – what the fuck do you think it is? Some kinda deformed … _thing_ or something? Like, maybe it got mutilated somehow? Steve?”

Steve doesn’t answer him. Instead he calls, voice calm, “Dustin.”

Dustin comes over.

Billy feels the sting of that insult start to burn a little. His cheeks hurt with embarrassment at being ignored like that.

He gave a whole rant there and Steve is going to act like he didn’t even hear him?

Until Dustin says, with vague disappointment, “Crap.”

Billy turns to look at him.

He’s staring at the thing as if he’s seen it a million times before.

Everything slots into place.

“Wait.” Billy barks. “You know what these things are? Coulda’ fucking warned me. Nearly got my head bitten off when I came in here.”

“Oh Jesus.” Steve says, eyes wide, finally looking at Billy. “God, Billy, it’s not – _nobody_ in Hawkins knows, we would never have – if we _knew_ you might have –”

“Steve.” Dustin holds up a hand. “Shut up.”

Steve shuts up.

Billy raises his eyebrows, turns to give an incredulous look at Dustin. Alright then. Just cut Steve off like a three-year-old, that’s cool.

“Stop judging me, I’m trying to think.” Dustin holds a palm up to his face. To _Billy’s face._

“You’d better get thinkin’ fast, shitbird.” Billy growls, his patience growing really fucking thin and no closer to an answer than he was an hour ago. “Tell me what it is, and tell me now.”

Steve looks at Dustin, helpless.

Dustin shrugs and gestures to Billy, as if, _carry on._

“It’s.” Steve starts.

“I can’t believe you fucking know what this is.” Billy cuts Steve off immediately. Part of him hadn’t really _believed_ they knew what it was. “I mean.” He waves. “ _That_. What the shit? This explanation better last about 3 seconds, I swear to God.”

Steve swallows, visibly. “Okay. So.”

“It’s not an alien, is it?” Billy can’t resist. Because seriously. “Is it an alien?”

Steve looks at Dustin.

“It really depends on your definition of alien.” Dustin replies.

“My definition of an alien is a fucking _alien_ , dumbass.”

“Hey!” Steve tries. “Watch the language.”

“I think this situation really warrants it, Steve!” Billy laughs, wild-eyed. “I think it really _freaking_ warrants it! Is that better?”

“Okay!” Dustin shouts. “Yeah, it’s an alien! From another dimension! Like a parallel universe exactly like this one only those things run the show over there! But our friend accidentally caused a hole between the dimensions and now these _‘freaking’_ Demogorgon aliens are coming out, only we thought we closed the hole but guess not! Guess we all failed and now we’re all fucked! _Again!”_

There’s a beat of heavy breathing.

“I’m gonna need, like … that _whole_ thing again.” Billy says. He waves a hand in a general circle. “All of that. One more time.”

*

So Billy is more or less caught up.

Only _not_ , not in the least, because what the fuck.

But supposedly that was everyone’s reaction.

“You took it a lot better than Max, let’s just say that.” Dustin laughs, grin wide and toothy, until it’s not.

Steve is staring.

Billy is staring.

“Right.” Billy smiles, shark-like. “Let’s start from the top, kay? And I mean the very.” He lifts a hand over his head. “ _Very_ top.”

*

Billy hears Steve’s soft-padded footsteps across the tiles of the backyard. He doesn’t look up. He just stares at his feet floating in Steve Harrington’s pool while he seriously reconsiders his entire life.

Hawkins, Indiana. Huh. Who knew?

“Hey.” Steve sits down next to him. He swings his legs around and dips his feet in alongside Billy’s.

But Billy rolled his denims up so they wouldn’t get wet. He took his shoes off and set them down.

Steve just dunks his whole two feet in, no warning no _nothing_.

“Wh – they’ll get _wet_.” Billy frowns.

“I really couldn’t care less right now.”

Billy looks up.

Steve stares at him, dead-eyed, absolutely indifferent.

For some reason that’s just the funniest shit. It’s just about the funniest thing Billy’s ever heard and seen in his life.

Billy throws his head back and booms with laughter.

He shakes with it, loud and expressive until Steve joins in a second later. They’re wheezing and gasping by the end, flapping hands and hitching breaths until Billy feels a hand land on his shoulder.

Steve’s face is split wide with a grin, eyes shining in euphoria, in understanding and _affection_ as he looks at Billy, holds his eye as he laughs.

And Billy’s still laughing too, he still finds every fucking thing about this situation totally hilarious, until his mouth opens and he blurts, “I fucking love you, Steve.”

Steve’s laughter hitches and stops.

Billy feels all the blood inside his body rush to his head.

“I, uh –” Billy tries. Because this just keeps getting better, clearly.

“Me too, man.” Steve smiles and claps him across the back. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad I know you now.”

Billy can’t really respond to that. There’s a lot to unpack in that sentence. The _me too_ , for starters, and then the rest of it. The entire rest of it.

“You know, Jonathan and Nancy already knew everything before me.” Steve says, resting back on his open hands. “And the kids are the real experts. They’ve got all the theories. They know what to do. And with Max, I wasn’t really there. I don’t really know how it all went down. But now she’s just a part of the group. She’s got the boys. And Nance and Jonathan have each other. Even though we’re all in the same boat, I always kinda felt like the outsider. Just a bit.” Then Steve smiles and bumps their shoulders shoulder. “But now I got you.”

Billy’s mouth is dry, throat tight.

“I wanted to tell you, Billy.” Steve blows out a breath. “I wanted to like _so many_ times. Now I get why Lucas felt like he had to tell Max.” Steve huffs a little laugh. “It’s like hiding something. Like _lying_. I fucking hate it.” Steve looks down at the water, flicks at a rock with his fingers.

Billy opens his mouth.

“You know back there, when you just kept repeating ‘this is crazy, this is crazy’.”

Billy exhales a laugh, and Steve chuckles too.

“I just kept thinking, ‘finally! Someone gets it!’” Steve throws a hand out. “I’m not totally insane here! This is _crazy!”_

They both laugh at that.

“When I joined the party it was just the new normal, it was just life for them. I didn’t get to go through the shift with everyone. The shift from ‘ _it’s just an average day at school and I’m living my life’_ to ‘ _shit what if something happens_ _here and now’_ every minute of every fuckin’ day. I don’t know man.” Steve runs a hand through his hair, tugs at it. “I feel like I’m still going through the shift. I don’t know when it’s meant to _stop_.”

“Hey.” Billy starts, mirrors Steve and places a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Steve. None of this shit is _normal_. Don’t think you’re not doing it right. You’re holding up a lot better than I am over here.”

Steve smiles and goes to speak.

“I’m not joking.” Billy says seriously. “You’re doing fuckin’ great. You look after those kids and make sure they’re still getting to school and aren’t totally consumed by this paranormal-dimension bullshit. You do right by them and you do right by Nancy fuckin’ Byers and her weirdo goth, even though personally they _still_ freak me out, and I didn’t hear much about their contribution to the situation I gotta admit.”

Steve is laughing as Billy speaks.

“You fought off fucking demo– whatever the shit!” Billy shouts over Steve’s laughter. “With a freaking _bat!_ That’s tight as _shit!_ And this is after I beat your face in, Jesus Steve I’d just about give up, say hey aliens you take the kids, I’ma just go lie down over here real quick –”

Steve _howls,_ his voice wild. Billy pantomimes with a thumb over his shoulder, grin wide and unabashed.

“Serious Steve, Nancy and Jonathan who? You’re all those kids fuckin’ talk about! Max said to me the other day I better be nice to you. You know my punk ass little sister, who’s never nice to anyone? And you’re gonna sit and tell me you’re the outsider?”

Steve shakes his head, his face split in two with a smile.

“I think you’re saying all this just to make me feel better.” Billy finishes. “Cause I don’t think you realise how much _everyone_ needs a Steve Harrington.”

Steve swallows, looks down. There’s still a ghost of a smile on his face. “I don’t know about that. All I offer are lame suggestions and dumbass strategies that nobody wants.”

Billy doesn’t like Steve’s tone, not one bit. “What, no thirteen year olds wanna listen to someone tellin’ them what to do?” He asks, and Steve huffs and rolls his eyes.

“Well when you put it –”

“Steve, no matter what you say you know they’re gonna wanna do their ideas. You know they’re gonna think those are better. They’re freakin’ kids, they don’t wanna listen to adults.”

Steve shrugs, unconvinced.

“But hey, all that’s changed.” Billy jostles Steve’s shoulder with his own. “From now on I’m your back-up. Any of your ideas get the full fuckin’ Hargrove approval. I’ve heard I can be pretty convincing.” He throws in a wink, for good measure.

Steve lightens instantly as he laughs. “ _Any_ idea?”

“Any one.” Billy nods. “However dumbass it sounds.”

Steve laughs again. “Well I’ve heard I can come up with a few of those.”

Billy tightens his jaw. “Whoever’s goin’ round saying that can answer to me. And I can hardly judge for myself if I haven’t even heard one.”

Steve pretends to consider that, finger on his chin. “True.” He laughs. “To be honest, most of my ideas consist of mainly ‘let’s hide and wait it out. And then hide some more.’”

“Solid fucking plan.” Billy claps his hands together. “I’m with Harrington on that one.”

Steve laughs again, tilts his head backwards. He’s laughier today, _happier_. It makes Billy’s blood fizzle and pop inside him like expensive champagne.

“Okay, okay, I’m on board.” Steve nods. There’s a beat of rest, of contented silence.

The longer it wears on through, the longer Billy starts to feel something gnaw on him.

“Steve.” Billy starts. He chews on his lower lip. “I really – I _know_ I’ve fucking said it, but Jesus I’m sorry for that night. I didn’t know what was going on, I was just thinkin’ about Max. If Neil found out about her and Lucas …” He pauses, swallows. “I just thought I was doing the right thing. I know it wasn’t, now.”

“Billy.” Steve states, firm. He turns Billy with both hands on his shoulders so Billy is looking straight at him. “Part of being forgiven is not needing to explain yourself. Okay? You don’t need to explain yourself. I forgive you for it. Whatever the reason, whatever was happening, whatever happened. It’s not important. It’s done.”

Billy nods, looks down. He sees Steve’s soaked feet, twisted a little from his awkward position holding Billy. The material of his denims are dark up to his ankles. It looks freaking ridiculous and also, weirdly, adorable.

“Are you gonna get changed before everyone starts coming over?” Billy asks, points to his feet.

Steve looks down, pulls his feet up and out the water. “Uh.” He shrugs, turns his mouth down at the corners. “Nah. Thought I’d wear them like this. Fashion statement, you know?”

Billy laughs a little, even though that’s a truly _dorky_ thing to say. Any other time he’d roll his eyes and say something snarky, but for some reason Steve’s dorkiness really just fucks him up. Not to get him wrong, Steve’s suaveness also fucks Billy up. Steve’s anything, it seems.

“Sure, just trail water all over your house.”

Steve’s eyes abruptly light up. “I didn’t even think about that!”

Billy laughs for real this time. He puts his shoes on, rolls his jeans down, only to dunk his feet in too.

Steve stares, open-mouthed.

Billy stands up, shakes out his newly-wet feet.

“Told you.” Billy grins, holds his hands out. “No idea is a stupid idea. I’m the back-up now.”

Something in Steve’s face softens up. Just releases some of it’s tensions, falls slack and vulnerable.

He smiles up at Billy, and it’s the same smile as always, but it’s softer, warmer: it’s just _more_. Does Steve even know he’s doing it? Why can’t he feel his face make that expression? Unless he _can_ , and he’s letting Billy see anyways. He just doesn’t care.

If that’s the case, then fuck it.

Billy holds out a hand to help Steve up and stops supressing his features so they only show about 60% emotion. He lets it all loose, lets it run free and wild.

By _God_ it feels good to release it all, to just let it fucking go. Billy can’t even tell what kind of face he’s making, doesn’t even think he’d recognise it in a crowd.

But Steve takes his hand instantly, his smile going a little smaller, a little more private.

Billy yanks him to his feet. He ends up closer than expected, smile soft and genuine, more genuine than Billy’s ever seen it.

He’s inches away for Billy’s face and Billy can literally _feel_ the heat of Steve’s breath, can feel his own smile slip and fall away as something else replaces it, something like hunger and _want_ , and fuck it’s like the switch is broken and Billy can’t seem to flip back. Steve’s smile falls as well the longer they don’t say anything, his eyes dark and intent on Billy’s face, and Billy feels heat travel to his head.

“Hey!”

Steve and Billy jump apart. Billy hadn’t even realised he’d still been holding Steve’s hand, because the loss of contact is jarring as cold air hits his palm.

“Are you guys gonna sit out here all day or are you gonna help me with the snacks?” Dustin yells. “Also I thought I’d point out there’s still a _Demogorgon_ in your trunk, Steve, so if you’d maybe carry it inside so we can actually _show_ everyone when they get here the proof of the upside-down instead of just inciting panic, that would be fantastic.” He flashes them a toothy grin and heads back inside.

Because the doors are glass, Billy can see the elaborate dishes he’s got set all along the counter. He actually reaches into the _oven_ and pulls something out.

“What age is that kid?” Billy asks.

Steve shakes his head. His hands have seemingly gravitated to his hips on instinct, as if it’s a by-product of talking to Dustin. “Don’t ask.” He heaves a sigh and levels a look at Billy. “Want to help me carry a dead, inter-dimensional monster into my house?”

Billy beams. “Sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (spoilers !! Billy becoming a part of the gang is a well-loved trope that many authors have done much better than me :) also should I tag slow-burn at this point?)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! Another long one folks. Currently juggling 2 part-time jobs which is draining, as well as a dissertation due January 2020 so it gets a little frazzled over here. Just want to thank everyone with their continued patience at my slow as all ass update schedule 😪🤧💛

So after they’ve hauled a dead demo-dog or whatever the shit they keep calling it in – Billy’s not sure who comes up with the names for these space aliens but he’s gonna have a chat with them, because if word gets out there are fucking _aliens_ in Hawkins and they’ve been going around calling them some witchcraft name from Dungeons and Dragons instead of something awesome like Cerberus, the dog that guards the gates of Hades who has _three fucking heads_ , or Typhon, basically the most deadly creature in Greek mythology who’s as tall as the _stars_ with hundreds of snake for _feet,_ then Billy won’t even admit to knowing anything about it. Anyways, after they've done that, they pretty much just dump it in Steve’s living-room.

It looks less intimidating in the harsh, rich fluorescent light of Steve's house, sprawled across a massive bed-sheet in the middle of Steve’s thick carpet. It looks smaller: a gangly, stick-thin thing, not the monster that it seemed when Billy first saw it.

Maybe because it’s lying down, not towering over him like it did in the garage. Maybe because it’s _dead_ as well. Billy thinks that might help.

But he can’t seem to tear his eyes away from it.

Steve looks like he’s in a similar situation. His gaze is glued to its lifeless form.

“It looks kinda small.” Steve murmurs close to his side. “I’ve never seen one when it wasn’t moving.”

Billy watches him.

“Didn’t stick around long enough to take a photo.” He huffs.

Billy hums low in his throat. He doesn’t have anything to add.

And so they just stand there, staring.

That is until like seven kids come sprinting into the house.

“Is it – did you –” Some scrawny geek Billy vaguely remembers as Nancy’s little brother barges in, hair all over the place. He catches sight of the demo-thing on the floor and pales so quick Billy's worried he might pass out.

“Yeah.” Steve answers with a sigh.

The quiet kid Billy thinks might be Will, the one that went missing, follows hot on the other kid’s heels. He stops too.

But it’s in a different way to Nancy’s brother. Billy’s familiar with that way. That stunned, silenced expression, that stiff shouldered stance. Yeah. He’s guessing this kid hasn’t forgotten how one of these things looks, even if it is dead on the floor.

Then Lucas trips and stumbles in his haste. He gapes at the Demogorgon with stripped, naked shock. That kid is one walking expression.

And then Max appears.

She looks at the Demogorgon, glances at Billy, back to the Demogorgon, does a second head-whip back to Billy, and then a final stare at the Demogorgon before she throws bug-eyes on Steve.

“What the hell is going on?” She cries.

“That thing nearly ate me for breakfast, that’s what going on.” Billy states. He nods to it. “Also, it’s been in our basement for, uh, we calculated about three months.” He shrugs, makes a face. “No big deal or whatever. That's also why it's so goddamn ugly.”

Max gapes at him. “Not – who – _when_ did –”

“I filled him in.” Steve says. He looks around at everyone in the room. "On everything."

“Which was nice, ya know?” Billy clicks his tongue against his teeth as he smiles. “To find out what’s going on. To be told about the health hazards in Hawkins. To be trusted with the weird paranormal on-goings in this world. That was cool.”

Max rounds wide eyes on the other kids, waves a hand in a wild circle. “ _They_ said I couldn’t tell anyone! They _swore_ me to it, they said it would just put anyone I told in danger! They _made_ me –”

“Max.” Billy moves towards her in her rant, puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes.

She stops instantly.

“I’m jokin’, kiddo." Billy states. "It’s fine. But Jesus fuck, you couldn’t have found a safer hobby?”

Max grins, her shoulders relaxing under Billy’s hand. “What, me?”

Billy laughs, ruffles her hair.

“Um.” Nancy’s annoying little brother cuts in. “What are we actually going to do about this? Is the gate open again or what? Are there more Demogorgons running around?”

Dustin chooses that moment to appear with a tray. “Snacks, anyone?” He beams. “Straight out the oven!”  


*

So after they’ve all sat down and had a chat and gone over the same points again and again and again, all endlessly _again_ – Billy’s been here five minutes but he’s a bit clearer on why Steve Harrington is _anything_ because repeating yourself to a bunch of twelve year old's who can only speak in quantum babble is fucking tiring – they’ve come to conclude that they can’t conclude _shit_ without someone called ‘El’.

“Who’s El?” Billy frowns.

The room goes quiet.

“She’s … a friend.” Mike (Nancy’s Annoying Little Brother) says. It sounds vague and shady as shit.

Billy looks around.

Nobody says anything.

“Ooo … kay.” He tries. If nobody is going to tell him though, he can't exactly force it out thier mouths.

“She’s basically a human experiment with psychic powers who like, accidentally opened the portal-gate thing to the Upside-Down in the first place when she was forced to touch a Demogorgon in her, uh, mind or … whatever…” Steve trails off. “What?”

Everyone is staring.

“We’re not supposed to just tell people!” Mike screeches. It’s honest to God ear-splitting. "That's why we didn't tell our parents, why we didn't tell _anyone!"_

“He’s not just people!” Steve defends. “He’s a part of the gang now! He _fought_ one!”

Billy feels a heady rush of fond-protectiveness at that. At Steve’s indignant voice, at the fact he’s _sticking_ _up_ for Billy.

If anyone wants to argue with Steve, then they’re perfectly welcome to answer to him.

“Fine.” Mike sits back and crosses his arms. “ _Fine_.”

Steve looks around the room, as if testing anyone else that might speak up. When nobody does, he turns to Billy.

They _all_ turn to Billy.

Billy opens his mouth. Tilts his head. “So like.” He starts. He tries to remember everything Steve just said. “Uh.”

They all wait.

“Sorry, nope.” Billy finishes. “I got nothing.”

*

The kids leave after another half hour. They basically eat biscuits in silence and grumble wordlessly and agree to meet tomorrow with the rest of the gang - including El. It's too late now to have a an official discussion about it, and Steve already let Nancy and Jonathan know something came up.

So they pack up the demo-dragon in a closet, wrapped up in an old sheet looking conspicuous as all hell, which Billy points out several times. Nobody bites though. Clearly they all want criminal records.

Steve drops the kids off and Billy kicks about the house and does some dishes. Steve said he’d come back for him and take him home straight after, but there’s not enough space in the car and he’d rather have the kids home first.

He’s such a freaking _dad_.

Either way, Billy messes about on his lonesome, but honestly there weren’t that many dishes in the first place. There's not much to do in Steve's empty-ass house.

He trails around Steve’s giant rooms and decides maybe, more than any other time in his life, he could use a nap.

The only problem is that he isn’t tired.

Weirdly Billy hasn’t once felt tired since the discovery of alien life and paranormal dimensions.

Despite that, he’s had enough experience from basketball and surfing to know the body can pretty much run on adrenaline and nothing else. He’s gone for longer on less than four hours sleep and a granola bar. It's not a pretty sight, but it's _possible_. And Billy is pretty sure the same thing is happening here.

But usually once the adrenaline drains out his system Billy can feel it happen: feel his limbs grow heavy and his mood get snappish and knows, yeah, he could use a nap.

That doesn’t happen though.

Billy feels jittery and on edge – jerks at every noise, glances every which way before he does something or even freaking _looks_ somewhere.

It’s then, at that exact moment, Billy has the sudden, sharp realisation about Steve’s bat.

Ah.

That’s how it comes to Billy: _ah_. Like a hard little ball dropped in his stomach.

And then the second realisation comes.

Why Steve sleeps on the sofa in the first place.

That one is a little worse. Billy feels that one a little deeper, a little harder. It’s got a bigger fist.

Because Steve doesn’t sleep on the sofa just cause there’s too much choice of rooms or cause it’s so much more comfortable than a normal bed.

He sleeps there, with his freaky nailed bat, in case something happens. Something exactly like tonight.

Billy hears Steve’s voice then, sees two feet in the pool, a hand through thick hair, ‘ _the shift from ‘it’s just an average day at school and I’m living my life’ to ‘shit what if something happens here and now’ every minute of every fuckin’ day.’’_

Billy is realising several things.

The first is that when he initially laid eyes on Steve Harrington, Billy sorely underestimated him.

The second is that Billy sorely underestimated the impact Steve Harrington would have on Billy’s life.

The third is finally, _finally_ the knowledge of what was in Steve’s eyes when he first looked at Billy. When he first cocked his brows, tossed down his shades and gave him a once-over.

It niggled at Billy like nothing else for weeks on end, burrowed deep under his skin and stayed there, grew and grew until he could barely contain it. Until it manifested itself in taunts and jibes and shoves down the hallway.

 _What the fuck was it?_ Billy would think, staring at the dark spot on his new bedroom ceiling. _Was it boredom?_

Was Steve **bored?** Of Billy? He'd literally _just_ set eyes on him. Annoyance? Vague disdain? Contempt?

Billy hated it. He fucking hated it. Ferociously, viciously, with his gut and his lungs and his teeth he _fucking hated it._

Hated that Steve Harrington could look at him _once_ and just know him. Just _see_ him.

But Billy sees it different now.

He sees it for what it was.

Resignation.

It was resignation. Steve looked at him, resigned, because Billy was flexed to the max and postured forward and ready to fucking attack at the first breath, and Steve knew it because he thought, _well, I guess I have to deal with this as well as everything else._

It’s the same look Billy gives any inconvenience in his life. Any failed paper because of a fist-fight the night before, any teacher’s rant on doing better, any lost game in basketball and any girl who Billy never took out again.

Because it might look like _I couldn’t give a flying fuck about you_. But it’s actually, _I don’t have anything left in me to care about this._

And when Billy realises that, when he sees _that_ was in Steve’s eyes all those months ago, he knows he’s well and truly fucked.

Because he’ll never find another Steve. Nobody in the world will ever compare to Steve.

To Steve feeling that — dealing with _that_ — and still managing to look put-together on the outside and not as if he's about to fly apart at the slightest sound like Billy looks every fucking day.

To Steve making it into school, class after class, game after game: protecting a group of kids with everything he has and shouldering the constant torrent of Billy’s shit, all the while sleeping on a couch with a bat beside him, the back-door unlocked and a set of absent parents to boot.

It’s like a wrench in Billy’s stomach, that knowledge. That he’s found it. That this is it.

Maybe before Billy could’ve pretended once he got back to California that everything would be fine.

He’d find another guy and maybe that guy would feel the same about Billy as Billy felt about him, it wouldn’t _be_ the same but at least Billy wouldn’t be _wanting_ anymore. Wanting to experience something with another person who he actually liked, actually had the hots for, actually looked at and wanted to touch. He could pretend that Steve would become a distant memory and Hawkins a bad fever-dream and eventually carry on with his life.

Sure Billy feels this way _now_ – like Steve is really the only person he’s ever connected with his whole life, the only person he ever will connect with and wants to connect with – but that’s just first love and shit, right?

Now though, Billy can’t pretend.

He’ll always be wanting. It’ll always be Steve.

Every part of Billy, all the parts of him - the good parts, the angry parts, the ugly parts, the loving parts - they all match up with Steve. They all click together with him.

And fucking _shit_. Isn’t that just wonderful? Straightest man alive, resident lady-killer, and the best friend he’s ever had. 

Billy’s been wandering from room to room, cursing himself and his stupid dumb luck, but now he’s at Steve’s bedroom door as if he hasn’t been circling it this whole time and he thinks, _might as well._

If Steve Harrington is the love of his whole life because he’s beautiful inside and out and Billy didn’t ever stand a chance against that, why not lie down in Steve’s bed and truly wallow in it? Swim in it, drown in it, suffocate underneath it. _Why not_ , huh?

Billy steps inside and wonders, for a weirdly acute moment, if it was always meant to come to this.

If he was always meant to come to Hawkins and collide with Steve at exactly the wrong time, just wrong enough for it to keep Billy awake at night.

If Hawkins was always meant to be supernatural, if the supernatural shit was always meant to deprive Billy of sleep and he was always meant to stumble into Steve’s house. If it was always going to come to this, always meant to fall into this place.

It’s a brief passing second, gone in the next.

But it’s enough to pause Billy in his steps and blink to dispel the strange thought.

It’s way too hippie for the likes of Billy. He doesn’t believe in fate and the cosmos and all that crap. And he's not about to start because of some pretty boy.

But the mid-afternoon light filters in from Steve’s open window, and it flashes into Billy’s sight and forces him to squint.

Only for his eyes to land on Steve’s photograph wall.

Billy stares.

He doesn’t move.

Along the top of Steve’s mirror, where the pictures of the kids take prize place, are the photos of Billy.

All of them.

Every single one that Steve took when they were messing about in the kitchen.

Billy’s heart jerks alive in his chest and starts doing back-flaps, beats so fast that he tastes it in the roof of his mouth.

He takes a step, then another.

At first he couldn’t really make them out, but to see them up close – Billy laughing, pulling faces, totally free, totally _vulnerable_ , makes something burn inside him. Like mortified joy. He’s fucking ecstatically humiliated. His head feels like an entire roast chicken and Billy doesn’t even want to know how far this flush reaches because Billy’s never experienced anything like this in his _life_.

Can people even feel two totally contradictory things at once? Utter mortification at his own face and how obviously dumbstruck _in love_ it is in the photos, and yet total happiness that Steve has Billy _pinned up on his wall._

Fucking Christ, if someone told Billy that a month ago, he’d die on the spot and ascend up to heaven.

Even if it was only for a few seconds before he’s shot straight down to hell.

He’s on Steve Harrington’s wall.

How are you meant to _respond_ to this? How do people normally respond to this? Is this even normal at all?

Granted, Steve _does_ also have a bunch of kids, his ex-girlfriend and the sheriff up on his wall. It sounds more like a contradictory mixture than anything, if not for the fact Billy knows they’re up there on Steve’s wall because they’re the people closest to him.

 _Billy_ is included in the list of people closest to Steve.

Sure, it’s not as if Billy’s pinned up on Steve’s wall in the _pin-up girl_ sense of the word, more the artsy displayed in a group of things that show off someone's life kind of way, but Billy will take it. Fuck, he’ll take what he can get.

And if Steve is going to stick photos of Billy up on his bedroom wall, then that’s a lot more than Billy ever imagined.

He stays there for a few minutes, just cataloguing Steve’s collection, just scanning his eyes over it again and again to fully let the knowledge sink in, that Billy’s up there. He feels as if he’d made it to some _wall of fame_ or some shit.

And then he hears the front door unlock, hears Steve’s voice call, “Hey! I’m back!”

Warmth fills Billy.

That Steve announces his presence as soon as he steps foot inside his own house, as if he didn’t want to startle Billy, as if a Demogorgon would knock on the front door all polite and gentlemanlike.

Billy grins and hops down the stairs.

Steve is shouldering off his jacket, rubbing his palms together because it might be spring but it still gets cold as shit when the sun goes down.

“Hey.” Billy announces, rolls on the balls of his feet.

Steve blinks, looks from the staircase to Billy. “What were you doing?” He looks strangely wary, as if he can just tell by Billy’s mood that Billy saw.

And to tell the truth, he’s right.

But Billy’s not about to admit that.

“Tryna’ have a nap.” Billy says. "Couldn't really sleep, though."

“Oh.” Steve relaxes, hangs up his coat. “Right.”

Billy opens his mouth. He’s about to ask if Steve wants to make some food, catch a movie, do something, _anything_ , because fuck it if he gets into trouble because this has been the weirdest day of his life and for some reason Billy doesn’t want it to end just yet.

Until Steve shoves hands in his pockets, shoulders up by ears, and says, “So I guess you don’t really have a reason to come around here anymore.”

Billy freezes. “W-what?”

Steve bugs his eyes out at Billy. “Not – not that you aren’t _welcome_ , I didn’t mean – I just meant we found the thing that was keeping you up at night, the Demogorgon must have been stuck in your basement for a while and I’m guessing maybe your room is closest to it and now it’s gone I guess, like – you won’t have so much trouble getting to sleep –”

“Yeah.” Billy nods, voice weak. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Billy.” Steve rushes. “That came out wrong, I didn’t mean you _can’t_ come over, I just meant you don’t have a _reason_ to now.”

“Right.” Billy nods again. It's all he seems capable of.

Steve runs both hands through his hair. “Not – this is coming out all _wrong_ , fuck!”

“Steve it’s fine.” Billy croaks, tries for a wan smile. “I can just go, it’s cool, it’s been a stressful day –”

“No!” Steve is growing desperate, trying to back-pedal out of his hole, trying to erase the insult he made because it’s clear, so clearly clear – it’s all over Billy’s face, Billy can’t hide it.

Something is shrivelling up inside him and withering away. There's not exactly a expression big enough to cover it.

Billy wants to leave before this conversation needs to last a second longer, because he’s obviously misunderstood every fucking thing and Steve wanted him out of his house, like, _yesterday_.

“Look, I’m just gonna go –” Billy tries to move around Steve.

Steve reaches for him. “Billy _come on,_ you’ve misunderstood me, I don’t mean I _want_ you to go –”

“I need to get back anyway, it's late–” Billy rambles, evades Steve's touch and pushes past. He makes it to the door and doesn’t even look back as he leaves.

“I’m dropping you off!” Steve yells behind him.

“It’s fine!” Billy waves a hand up in the air and goes down the porch steps, doesn’t turn back for a second.

“Billy please!” Steve’s voice goes high and thin, a little brittle. “Don’t walk! You said you wouldn’t –”

“I know what they look like now, Stevie!” Billy jokes, still not facing Steve’s direction, halfway down Steve’s drive by this point. “If I see one, I’ll make sure to run in the opposite direction!”

Steve shouts back something indistinct, but Billy’s feet are stumbling in their haste until he’s basically just jogging it away, trying and spectacularly _failing_ at casual but who the fuck cares?

Billy makes it about five minutes of brisk walking home before he needs to lean against a tree and press two hard fists into his burning eyes.

Because _what the fuck._ Billy feels as if he’s on a never-ending carnival ride, only not the good kind, the kind that spins and spins and sickeningly spins.

Steve really couldn’t have put it more bluntly _. There’s no reason for you to come here anymore._

Billy sucks in a sharp breath through clenched teeth, balls up his hands and shoves them into his eyes as if he could physically press the tears back in.

What the fuck _is_ this shit? His emotions feel like they’ve been turned up to the max, like that dumb scene in Back To The Future where Marty turns on the stereo and just goes flying. That’s Billy every second he spends with Steve.

One minute he’s sky high and now he’s crashing like a boulder dropped off the face of a cliff.

He spends another fifteen minutes marching it home, breath puffing out white, shoulders hunched and quivering.

When he finally makes it back, Neil is waiting.

“Where've you been?” He asks.

Billy shrugs. He’s so cold he can’t see straight. “Out.”

Just then Max comes thundering down the stairs, eyes wide until they settle on Billy and she relaxes an inch.

Billy has a flash of guilt for making her wait so long till he got home, especially since he’s just discovered the existence of alien life. He can understand why she might be a little frazzled.

“Oh – Billy was just –” Max splutters.

“Max.” Neil says, all calm and friendly. “I’m talking to Billy. Why don’t you go help your mom in the kitchen?”

Mas doesn’t move. Her gaze is trained on Billy’s face, determined.

Billy smiles despite himself. He nods toward the kitchen. _Go,_ he mouths, just small enough that Neil doesn’t notice as he turns to look at Max.

Max waits a beat as if to make sure, and then she flips her hair behind her, gives Neil a look, and stalks off.

God, Billy really loves that kid. She’s fierce as shit.

Once she’s gone, Neil turns on him.

Billy doesn't even try to dodge at this point.

He’s only tossed around a little, shoved into the door and given a light backhand across the cheek, but it’s nothing major. Neil tells him to pick up his slack and do whatever he does on his own time instead of Neil’s, but all of Billy’s time belongs to Neil apparently so that math doesn't exactly add up, does it Neil? Fucking go to math school. Billy doesn't even know. He's exhausted.

The thing is, it’s not _bad_. It never gets “bad”. Billy knows it can get bad – he spent a little time in care when he had to go in-between mom and Neil before mom left for good and Neil got custody.

So he’s heard bad. He’s _seen_ bad.

This isn’t bad.

This is just a shitty, non-ideal situation.

Billy holds no love for his father, but plenty kids in life don’t. Billy’s mom didn’t stick around but Jesus, what’s newsworthy about that? Sure he gets pushed around, maybe finds a bruise here or there sometimes, maybe feels small and powerless and weak and tries to regain that power any way he knows how. But that’s it.

Once he’s had his telling-off from Neil, Billy tramples on up to his room and skips dinner. He ignores Susan when she calls up but it’s alright, they usually let that shit slide because he blasts his music so loud so that's his excuse, and they can just use Billy’s leftovers for lunch the next day. Nobody actually fucking _cares_.

Only there’s a tentative knock at his door, quiet and unsure.

Billy blinks.

He sits up from his slumped position, closes his book, and turns his stereo down. “Come in?” He asks.

Max steps inside. She chews on her lower lip.

Billy smiles and swings both legs over his bed. “Hey.”

“Billy, I would’ve –” Max blurts.

Billy pats the space beside him.

Max eyes it for a beat before she sits down.

“I don’t bite.” Billy holds his hands up.

Max huffs, then she wrinkles her nose. “It stinks in here.”

Billy laughs. “Yeah, I should probably open the windows more when I’m smokin’. But shit, it gets _cold_ over here.”

Max laughs. “I know. It's no California.”

Billy falls quiet. He waits for her to speak.

“I didn’t believe them until I saw one. For real.” She says. “It was that night at the Byers. Afterwards, we were attacked by a group of them.”

“Fuck.” Billy curses. Imagines his thirteen-year-old sister facing not just one of the ugly fuckers, but _multiple_.

“Steve was there.” Max says. "He saved us."

Billy’s heard it all off Dustin though, and he doesn’t exactly feel like the re-run. “Well whatever they are Max, we’re gonna get rid of them.”

Max looks up into his face. Her eyes scan his expression. She looks so _young_ , then.

“Yeah?”

“Hell yeah.” Billy affirms. “They’re not welcome here. They can shift it. Get back to their own creepy little dimension.”

Max laughs, leans into Billy so their shoulders are touching.

And then she says, “You’ve been so different since you started hanging out with Steve.”

Billy tries not to tense. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m glad though. I like you more now.”

Billy swallows tightly. “I’m sorry I'm a shit, kiddo. I’m trying.”

“I know.” Max says gently. As if she really does.

Billy doesn’t reply.

“You like Steve?” She asks, curious.

Billy breathes for a moment. “Yeah.” He murmurs, voice quiet.

“You like him – like Lucas likes me?” Max continues.

Billy knows how Lucas likes Max. He sees it shine out the poor boy everytime they’re together. 

He doesn't ask about Max's feelings, but he's pretty sure the way she worded that question gives him a big clue.

Still though, _like_ is a bit of an understatement at this point.

Billy could deny it. Ask what she means.

But he knows what she means.

“Yeah.” Billy whispers, focused on the posters on his wall.

He waits for her to stiffen, to turn and frown, _how is that possible?_

And he wouldn’t mind. Max is a smart kid, and she’s kind, and she’s _good_. Billy thinks, with just a little educating, she could come around easy. It’s the 1980’s. Shit is moving forward. It’s not illegal anymore.

Max doesn’t do any of that. She stays where she is, just as relaxed, as if she expected it. “Cool.”

Billy huffs. _“Cool?”_

Max finally pulls back to look at him. “Yeah. It’s cool. I had an idea you know.”

Billy pulls a face. “That obvious, huh?”

Internally, it feels like all his organs are pulling a face at him too.

Max smiles, as if she senses his embarrassment. “Nah. It’s just cause I know you. I can tell when you're hiding around someone.”

Billy breathes out a little easier at that. “Here’s hoping.” 

“Why?” Max frowns. “You know he’s totally into you too.”

Billy gapes, his heart going from zero to sixty. “ _What?_ Did he tell you –”

Max rolls her eyes. “No, doofus, it’s obvious.”

Billy deflates, but he can’t actually feel angry at her. “Okay then, thirteen-year-old with her thirteen-year-old logic –”

Max looks affronted. “I’m actually a _really_ good people-reader –”

“Sure, sure, and I guess you read in a magazine that if someone has a crush on a person, usually _that_ person _also_ likes –”

“NO!” Max defends. “But I do have eyes, and you guys don’t –”

“Okay, out.” Billy play-pretends to be annoyed, picks her up thrashing and giggling and deposits her at his door.

“Go on.” Billy nods to her room down the hall. “It’s late. Get some sleep.”

Max sighs, defeated, but she gives him a light arm-punch before she leaves.

Billy has definitely seen her do that to the other kids at school.

Billy has _definitely_ just graduated from _terrible step-brother_ to _reluctant step-brother_ to _okay step-brother._

It’s still not _big brother_ , because they’re a while away from that. 

Still, it’s something. It’s a start.

*

Billy is lying awake in bed, exhausted and totally unable to sleep, when it happens.

His forgotten walkie-talkie crackles to life, fills the room with static noise before the quietest whisper comes through.

“Billy?”

Billy picks it up in a second. “Steve?”

The only sound for a beat is Steve’s soft breathing. “Hey.”

Billy swallows.

“Hey.”

They don’t talk about tonight.

They don’t bring up what happened.

“Can’t sleep?” Steve asks.

“Yeah.” Billy murmurs.

“Me neither.” Steve replies. “Been a while since I looked at one of those things.”

Billy is about to say, _I can’t imagine why._ He’s about to say, _Max mentioned what you did._

Instead he just says, “Yeah.”

“Billy.” Steve murmurs. “Can you.”

Billy waits.

“Could you come over?” Steve whispers, voice small.

It takes a split-second for Billy to reply.

“Yeah.” He says. “Sure.”

Because even if Steve just needs the company and he’s not actually as invested in their friendship as Billy thought and the pictures thing was just something totally fucking misinterpreted, Billy will still be there. Billy will always be there. Steve clicks his fingers and Billy comes. That’s just how it is.

Because Billy Hargrove is in love with Steve Harrington.

There. He said it.

So Billy gathers his keys, his walkie, and prepares to get his dumb as shit heart broken all over again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your endless patience, thanks for all your lovely comments, thanks so much ♥️♥️

When Billy makes his way to Steve’s house, he’s not surprised to see all the lights still on.

He understands why.

It took a long time and a lot of slow breathing before Billy gathered the balls to turn his bedroom light off.

As soon as his room was washed in darkness his heart kicked up into overdrive – yeah, but not in the good way.

Not in the warm, fluttery feelings way.

It was the stone-cold, spine-hardening kind of heartbeat Billy felt in his chest.

Billy jumped over to his bed and pulled the covers tight around him, but it still didn’t seem to ease the chill that felt bone-deep and wrapped around every one of his organs.

He smoked for a bit and stared at his ceiling and knew that he wasn’t getting one wink, one _blink,_ of sleep.

Which is why when he rocks up and sees Steve’s house lit like a Christmas tree, Billy feels that familiar feeling of hurt-warmth. Because he understands Steve. He knows Steve, completely, utterly, totally.

Sometimes it feels as if they’re the same person split into two bodies. And sometimes it just feels like fucking shit.

He raps on the door and Steve answers, bed-headed, ruffled and tired.

He’s wearing long pyjama pants and a threadbare jumper over what looks like a regular t-shirt. He’s adorable.

That’s all Billy needed to say, really. Just: adorable.

“Hi.” Billy states. He focuses on a point by Steve’s ear and prays his cheeks resemble a skin-like colour.

“Hey.” Steve replies, soft and rough. “Billy – I meant that it _sucks_ you don’t have a reason to come over anymore.”

Billy is so stunned by Steve’s brash, brave address he meets Steve’s eyes.

“That’s what I meant.” Steve states, brown eyes clear and honest. “I meant: I’m sad you don’t have to reason to come over. I’ll _miss_ you coming over. But I didn’t say that because I felt like it sounded way too mushy and sentimental, and I thought you’d be able to tell from my face and my voice and my whole _body_ that it sucked. So.” Steve shrugs, awkward, hands flapping at his sides like birds.

Billy blinks. Then he huffs out a breath, blows smoke into the cold night air, and shakes his head. “Then just damn well _say that_ Steve.” He laughs, feeling light and airy. “I’m not gonna micro-analyse your fuckin expression and hope you mean what I want you to mean. I’m not scared of a little mush or whatever.” His cheeks burn. “Yeah we’re both dudes, but we can get mushy. Just be _honest_ with me.”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a beat.

Billy swallows, toes at Steve’s expensive gravel and waits. Then he starts to worry he’s somehow gone too far.

Because maybe that’s not something friends say to friends, that they aren’t afraid of mush, maybe friends _are_ afraid of mush and that why they remain friends –

“I really like it when you’re here.” Steve starts, voice short and clipped. He stares at a point out into the dark, not quite meeting Billy’s eyes. “I actually _look forward_ to coming home when I know you’re here. I really like making food together. And doing the dishes together. And watching the TV together. And talking about – kinda nothing, really. I thought maybe this would become a regular thing, you know, our routine.” Steve looks down and kicks his toe into his expensive carpet, a mirror-image of Billy (god they’re mirror-images now). “And then it turned out you had a Demogorgon in your basement and I thought, _Christ, maybe there really was a lot of noise at his place. Maybe he won’t come over anymore._ And that made me feel crap. So I just suggested it, in case it was true and you wanted an out. Or maybe just so I could make myself feel better for saying it first.” Steve swallows. Jerks a shoulder upright. “Save face, kind of thing.”

Billy stares. “Uh.” He tries, a little choked. His head feels roasted in an oven again. “That’s – _a lot_ of mush, Steve.” He laughs, tries to brush off his obviously Dumbstruck-In-Love face with the lame douchebag act.

Then Steve looks how Billy imagines an erupted volcano would the minute before it blows.

“Did – you – should I –” Steve splutters, incoherent, practically supersonic.

“What, no!” Billy waves his hands, as if to physically undo the mistake. “No, that was good! I just didn’t expect it! I didn’t even know most of that. But. Uh. Same.” His voice trails off, painfully awkward.

Steve’s mouth closes softly. And then he nods and just stands there, emanating heat, and – fuck it.

 _Fuck it,_ Billy didn’t mean to make Steve embarrassed, he doesn’t want Steve to think that his feelings aren’t returned, because Christ does Billy personally know how hard that sucks.

“I mean, Steve.” Billy grunts, because even though he wants Steve to know he also _doesn’t want Steve to know. “_ You’re literally my best friend in the entire world. I spend, like. All my time with you.” Billy coughs.

Steve doesn’t say anything.

Billy keeps talking. “And yeah, your house is freaking massive and you’re _intimidatingly_ rich, but –”

Steve’s already laughing, relieved, until Billy continues.

“Uh. It’s my favourite place to come to.” Billy mumbles, his throat suddenly going tight, his body making the decision for him: preparing to do it, gathering all its steely reserve and all its shelter because he’s about to say, _and I love you, Steve._

_I love you Steve._

_It’s okay and I know it’s weird but I kinda just have to say it, I love you._

“Alright, okay!” Steve laughs, abrupt and unexpected. “I get it, you look like you’re in physical pain, it’s okay you don’t have to go on any more.”

“Oh – right.” Billy says, startled. The adrenaline rush that was building inside swoops low in his gut and evaporates out of him.

Steve steps aside to let him in, and Billy kicks his shoes off the way he always does even though everything inside him wants to scream _wait, just **wait**._

Because they keep reading each other wrong. They keep cutting each other off.

Billy did it when he stormed out this afternoon and didn’t take the time to look at Steve. And now Steve’s doing it to him when Billy needs to, he _needs to_ –

Cause his body is strung taut, in position, braced for impact. The words are already up his throat, pressing into his gums and against his teeth, wanting _out_.

Steve is going back inside, though. The moment’s passed, the opportunity is gone.

So all Billy can do is swallow them, tasting as sour and acidic as vomit.

Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe this is like a second chance. It’s not something he could take back. If he threw up all over the floor he couldn’t just laugh, _didn’t mean that! Just a joke!_

It’s an I love you. He might as well vomit at Steve’s feet for how welcome it would be.

And where would they go from that? What would they become? How would they become it, would it be a slow deterioration or a quick and sudden death?

Billy follows Steve into his house and pretends to himself that he’s glad Steve cut him off. Pretends that this is better than knowing for sure how Steve felt. This is _better_.

Even though every part of him knows that Steve can’t feel the same, his heart still wants it confirmed. His heart still convinces him that it would be better if the words were out in the open. They would feel less heavy. He would feel less guilty. It would just be _better_.

But it wouldn’t. That’s the thing. He _knows that,_ so why can’t he feel it?

Billy just needs to listen to his fucking head in this regard because it’s never led him wrong before. It’s always been the thing to get him out of trouble.

And Steve Harrington has always been trouble.

“So. I dunno what you wanna do.” Steve huffs his not-really-funny-I’m-uncomfortable laugh. “Watch TV and shoot the shit and hope we pass out at some point?”

“Sounds good to me.” Billy affirms and claps his hands.

Steve nods, and then he gives Billy a sidelong look. “Did you — were you sleeping?”

“Not one wink, my friend.” Billy states, with a grand sweeping sense of confidence as he beams. “Those freaky fuckers have ruined my sleep for life. I’m hoping for a nap in thirty years.”

Steve laughs again, but this one is warm and full of feeling.

Sometimes Steve laughs and it’s a hollow noise, not empty per say. It just has nothing inside it. It’s like a drum, sudden and quick. A sound made when it’s forced to be brought into existence.

But this laugh is his real one. Billy can tell. He can feel it in his gut. It rebounds around the room and crinkles up Steve’s whole face and seeps inside Billy too. That’s how Billy knows.

“Oh _man_ , do I relate.” Steve chuckles. He swipes a tired hand over his face. “I’ll join you, say, forty.”

 _See?_ Billy wants to say, to wave his hands around. _See, Steve? We get one another. Can’t you see we just get each other? How is some chick gonna understand this? How could she have what we have? Who else could you have this with?_

Steve looks at his face, a little scrutinising, and Billy realises he’s not replied.

“Come on.” Billy says, too in love and too in pain to respond to that with another joke.

He jumps over the back of the couch, settles into the cushions and lies back, closes his eyes and realises how tired they are, how heavy and sore.

He feels the couch move.

Feels Steve sit down next to him, his warmth a palpable comfort.

“What you wanna watch?” Steve asks, his voice like a wash of ease over Billy. A wash of _homefamilairgood._

“Mm? Whatever. Anythin’.” Billy murmurs, already dozing.

There’s quiet breathing as Steve flicks through the channels.

“What the fuck.” Billy whispers after a minute.

“What?” Steve asks, voice stone cold and alert.

“How the hell you ... make me fall ‘sleep so fast ... like a blanket ...” Billy mumbles.

Steve laughs again, all genuine. “I’m doing nothin here. This is all you. Maybe if I were to do _this_ —”

And then Steve reaches over and sinks his fingers into Billy’s hair.

Billy, in his sleep-addled state, is definitely not expecting that.

His eyelids flutter with a soft moan as he feels Steve’s touch along his scalp. Billy can literally feel the soothing, gentle pressure of Steve’s fingertips in every single one of the nerve endings along his head.

“And patted you like a cat. _Wow,_ that stuff is softer than I expected. What do you use?”

“Mm’s. Keep.” Billy nudges his head into Steve’s hand. He can’t open his eyes. They’re glued together.

“You actually are a cat.” Steve murmurs, voice laced with amusement.

“Too tired. Want you.”

“What?” Steve feels closer to his face for some reason. Billy doesn’t know. He can’t seem to feel his eyelids anymore. It’s like he’s floating on a cloud. A lovely little cloud, all soft and fluffy.

“Jus’ ... so nice.” He sighs. “Like you. Always had... I always... wanted you.”

Steve’s hand stills in his hair.

Billy doesn’t like that: he scrunches his face up and wriggles to the side, finds Steve’s shoulder and buried his nose into it.

It’s soft and it smells lovely. A little bony, but it’s Steve. It’s _Steve_.

“Billy? What do you mean?” Steve asks, voice quiet.

Billy sighs a long, low sigh. He’s so comfortable.

“You’re so... good.” Is all he manages.

Then he can’t feel his mouth either and stops talking altogether.

He hears Steve call to him. Hears Steve say things like, “Billy, are you awake?” “Billy?” And then one time, soft and muttered, “Of course this happened.”

But then Steve stops talking too, and after a while he goes lax and plaint under Billy.

Billy shuffles all the way closer so it’s not just his head on Steve’s shoulder.

He presses his waist to Steve’s waist and then pushes their thighs together so the entire lengths of their sides are touching. He slides an arm around Steve’s middle.

It’s warm, and feels like a hot duvet on the most expensive mattress imaginable. It feels nothing short of beautiful, especially when Steve’s head falls onto Billy’s and they’re lying so totally entwined that Billy gets that weird prickle in his eyes that always happens whenever he’s touched from a prolonged period of time. Then he wakes up a little.

He squints groggily from his position attached to Steve’s side and realises that yes, he actually cried himself _awake_ this time. That one’s new.

In the end Billy is too blissed out to care, and so he closes his eye and falls back into that floaty state.

Before long, the floaty state turns into a deeper drowning and then it all mingles together in one black bottomless pit and Steve is there, and Billy finds him. They’re at a party and Billy crosses the room and Steve smiles when he catches sight of him and he motions with a hand, _I need a smoke,_ voice all light, so they go outside and Billy turns to give him one and Steve touches him, the side of his face. Billy has the smoke held in frozen fingers and he’s terrified until Steve cups his jaw and kisses his mouth.

Only Billy can’t really feel it, he chases Steve’s lips but Steve is being playful, Billy presses on harder because he wants it, he fucking wants it, spins them around and pushes Steve into the wall and descends on his mouth.

Then they’re in a bed, the pillows behind Steve’s head plush like clouds and Steve making soft little huffy noises as Billy travels down Steve’s body, he smells like soap and cotton and the morning dewy air, because they’re both not wearing anything, and Billy presses their hips together as pleasure tingles across his whole body yet for some reason it doesn’t feel enough, Billy presses harder and feels as if he’s on the edge of how it should feel, Steve’s hands run down his back and Billy’s breath comes in short, sharp bursts, quicker and quicker —

Billy gasps with a half cut-off moan as his eyes fly open.

They immediately meet a very befuddled and very flushed Steve Harrington.

“Wh.” Billy croaks, because he’s still sleep-hazy and Steve is here, he’s _here_ , and they were just — did they actually just —

And then it hits Billy like a freight train through the chest.

It was a dream. Billy fell asleep.

He fell asleep on Steve and he – he was _dreaming_ about Steve and – Billy was dreaming about Steve while he was _on_ Steve and now –

“Billy, it’s fine.” Steve rushes, his cheeks fire-red, eyes frantic. “It’s – we all get them, it’s cool –”

Billy makes a noise from a guttural place in his throat and curls in on himself, wants to die, honestly and purely wants his life to end, to cease abruptly and _come to an end._

“Billy.” Steve states, voice rough. “I’m serious, look –” He pulls on Billy’s wrist.

Billy curls up further, hopes that maybe in some way he can curl so hard he bends space and time and collapses in on himself.

“ _Christ_ , Billy, I had one too.”

Billy stills.

Slowly, he uncurls.

He looks at Steve.

Steve is stiff-shouldered and rigid. He’s sat upright with a cushion over his lap. Billy never even saw him pick one up.

He doesn’t meet Billy’s eyes. His cheeks are redder than Billy’s ever seen. Than Billy even knew was _physically possible._

“It’s the – body heat, or whatever. Sharing body heat. It’s fine. Guys get them all the time. I get them all the time. It’s not a big deal. It doesn’t mean anything.” Steve states, clipped and tight.

A muscle ticks in Steve’s jaw. It’s then that Billy realises how utterly _uncomfortable_ Steve is.

Because they’re clearly both sat here hard, after having a wet dream while they pressed against each other.

It’s fucking _awkward._

It would be awkward for anyone in the world. Hell, it’s awkward for _Billy_ and he’s the one in love with Steve, so he can’t imagine how Steve is feeling right now.

Billy pushes away the fact that Steve is hard – _save that shit for later, Billy, there’s bigger fish to fry here_ – and straightens up.

“Okay, so that makes me feel a little better, I gotta admit.” Billy chuckles, all bravado and cocksure grin. “Really thought I was gonna have to go into some explanation, it’s not you it’s me kinda thing.”

He tries for a laugh, but it doesn’t make Steve unstiffen. Doesn’t seem to have any effect whatsoever. Doesn’t so much as make Steve _twitch_. 

Billy realises that he’s just saying what he thinks he should in this situation, saying what he thinks Steve _wants_ to hear. But he’s not saying what he knows Steve wants to hear.

The thing is that Billy doesn’t know what Steve wants in this particular situation.

Billy searches, wracks his brains and really _thinks_ until, stumped, he just sags back onto the couch.

“Steve I’m kinda just grappling here, ‘cause this is most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole life and I don’t have a clue what to say.” Billy admits.

Steve turns to meet his eyes. And then he shakes his head and laughs out loud.

Billy can’t help but join in with a snort, and then they’re laughing and Billy realises he did know what Steve wanted to hear.

Of course he knew what Steve wanted to hear.

Steve wants the exact thing that you mean. He wants honesty however it’s given – as a joke, as a statement, as whatever you want to give it as. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Look, _look_ , we can salvage this.” Steve snickers, and then he stands up and –

The light, unresisting material of his pyjama pants does nothing to push down his erection.

Okay, _sure,_ Billy knows if Steve was wearing Levi’s this would be a whole other matter because that shit would practically outline it, cut a glorifying mould, but this.

This.

 _This_ is any sense of the word is not something Billy can handle, but it.

It.

It bounces. It fucking _bounces,_ okay?

It’s that apparent that it _bounces_ and Billy can literally see the wobble of _everything_ and the blood rushes down south so fast that it leaves Billy dizzy and fevered and seeing goddamn stars.

Steve does a little jiggle to re-position himself, pulls the waistband down, and runs over to the kitchen.

“Jeez, it actually hurts.” Steve laughs a little, and then he hisses as he bends to look into the fridge and Billy.

Billy’s mouth waters.

He’s not proud of it. He can’t control it. But when Steve says that Billy instantly envisions dropping to his knees –

 _Shit, shit, get it together, fucking hell Billy get your shit together,_ Billy chants to himself inside his head, even though he physically needs to squeeze his legs together and his eyes shut.

The whole roof of his mouth is dry from that one sentence, those three, _four_ words that Steve just said. Christ, Billy can’t fucking count he’s hard out his goddamn _mind_ and everything is starting to look a bit grey around the edges.

“Got it!” Steve shouts. There’s a clatter as he brings out some beers. “Here.” He comes back and holds one out to Billy.

Billy leans forward in stuttering increments.

He takes it with a wince.

Steve’s face flushes all over. Billy’s pretty sure he sees it seep all the way down to his _chest_.

“Sore?” Steve guesses, a little throaty.

Billy nods with a pained smile. “Yup.”

_You’ve got no damn idea, pretty boy. Everything about this is sore._

Steve sits down next to him. He’s little stiff again, tensed-up and awkward. “Don’t worry. The beer will sort it out.”

Billy laughs. “Cheers.”

They click bottle-necks, open up, and take a swig at the same time.

Steve relaxes back into the sofa. “Literally can’t remember the last time I had a wet dream.” He huffs. It’s obvious he’s trying for humour.

It just doesn’t work.

“Yeah.” Billy huffs back. “Though I don’t think it was much of a wet dream for either of us.” He can’t help but mumble. His whole face is scalding as he says it. “Think I might be a little happier if that were the case.” Billy mutters under his breath.

Steve takes a beat to reply. “Right.” He sounds like he’s being strangled. “Yeh, more – kinda wet dream.”

The don’t say anything.

They sip in silence.

It’s not getting any better. Billy would almost say it was getting _worse_ if not for the fact it’s just a constant, thrumming ache between his legs.

“I should go.” Billy manages at last, after an agonising few minutes.

Steve’s head whips over to him. “Do you have to?”

Billy takes one look at that face and knows it’s a lost cause. He sighs low. “Nah. Not really. I’ll stay for a bit.”

_And die in the process._

But then Steve deflates, shoulders dropped. “Don’t stay if you don’t want to. It’s late anyway. We should try to sleep.” But he looks totally dubious and a little resigned, as if the last thing he plans to have is sleep.

Billy has a sudden idea. “I mean.” He starts. “You do have, like, a million rooms. I can just crash in one. The same way I usually do.”

Steve’s eyes light. “Yeh?”

“I’d just have to leg it before the sun rises.” Billy says. “Which is 6AM. But yeah.”

Steve sets down his beer with a sigh, his shoulders looser, posture relaxed. “Thanks man. I mean it. I’ll give you like, four alarm clocks.”

Billy laughs. “Not necessary. I’ll wake up, don’t worry.”

Steve studies him. “That’s kinda the reason I worry.”

Billy frowns. “What – the fact that I wake up naturally at sunrise?”

“Yeah.” Steve states. “I’ve never met anyone who does that.”

Billy shrugs, holds his hands spread out. “Maybe I’m unique.”

Steve snorts, then he stands up. The problem has died a little, Billy does _not_ greedily notice. Because that would be weird. And creepy. And … yeah.

“As if I don’t know that.” Steve replies, a little cryptic. “Anyway. Take your pick of a room. They’ve mainly all got an en suite, and you can use the guest toothbrushes–”

“Steve.” Billy starts. “I’ve slept over before, remember?” He says. “Even at night. I know all this.”

Steve blinks, and then he rubs his eye with the heel of his hand. “Yeah. Sorry. My head feels all foggy. Those demoshits have messed me up, dude.”

Billy laughs. “It’s cool.” He reminds Steve. “Honestly. We’re in the same boat with that one. Just got to bed. I’ll be right up after you.” 

“Uh.” Steve starts, sheepish. “I was kinda just – gonna sleep on the sofa –”

“No.” Billy states. “No way. You’re sleeping in a damn bed unless you want an old man’s back.”

Steve laughs, opening his mouth, but Billy isn’t hearing any of it.

He stands up and pushes Steve around toward the stairs, careful to keep a safe distance between them, Steve groaning and grumbling the entire time as he leans his weight back on Billy and Billy laughs.

Once they’re at the top of the landing though, Steve gives him a little nod and a dorky wave. “Night.” Steve calls, voice soft, before he trails down the hall and closes his door.

Billy stands there smiling after him for a ridiculous amount of time before he picks a room and collapses face-first.

The bed sheets are cool and smooth, and Billy sinks inside them without even taking his trousers off, without even unbuttoning a button, without doing anything.

His eyes slide closed as exhaustion finally, finally takes a hold of him, as sleep starts to creep into the sides of his vision …

Until he jerks awake, startled, heart beating fast.

Billy blinks away the hazy memory of the Demogorgon, it’s face opening in a blood-curdling scream.

He breathes slowly, rolls over onto his back and throws an arm over his face.

Jesus. He’s never going to sleep. It’s easier to just stay awake rather than tossing and turning all night when he jolts upright every five minutes from another horrifying image.

Until Billy remembers something he usually does when he can’t sleep.

Sometimes, if it’s late, and the whole house is quiet, Billy will …

But this is _Steve’s house_. And Steve is right down the hall. And fuck, it’s too tempting to ignore at this point. He can’t not.

Billy slides his hands lower, pops the first button of his zipper, feels his pulse quicken and his hand tremble –

There’s a knock on the door.

Billy jerks up.

Steve heard. He can’t have _heard_ , right?

“Yeah?” Billy calls, a little rough.

Steve pops his head around the door. “Hey. Can I come in?”

Billy’s pulse is now sky-rocketing. “Uh. Sure.”

Steve tiptoes in quickly, and Billy braces for it, the excuse right on the tip of his tongue …

“I just. I wanted to talk to you about El.”

Billy frowns, totally bewildered. “El … oh, right! The little girl with the powers.”

Honestly, the fact that sentence comes out Billy’s mouth unironically and he doesn’t even give a shit is a testament to how tired he is. Or how fucking _freaky_ those Demogorgons are. Trust him. They’re fucked up.

“Yeah.” Steve states, crosses over and sits at the edge of his bed. “Just. She’s a little … different. I wanted to warn you before you meet her tomorrow.”

Billy shuffles up the bed. “Okay. How weird we talking?”

“She’s not.” Steve huffs and looks away, clearly searching for the words. “She didn’t have a normal life, before she came here. She’s kind of … on the run, you could say. So we all need to keep her a secret. People are after her. _Bad people_ , Billy. She – she grew up in a lab, essentially. And she didn’t really learn how to socialise and talk to people. So she’s … different. She talks a little differently. You’ll know what I mean when you meet her.”

Billy watches Steve. “Alright. Why are people after her? Is it the people who kept her in a lab?”

“Yeah.” Steve states, blunt. “They want to use her powers. For bad stuff. As you can imagine.”

“Jeez.” Billy blows a breath out. “Sounds like something from a goddamn sci-fi movie.”

Steve snorts. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve landed in one, honestly.”

Billy nods. “Okay. I’ll be careful with her, don’t worry. No cussing, I gotcha.”

Steve gives him an odd look then. “Billy. I didn’t come in here and tell you to behave tomorrow. You’ll be great with her. I know you will. She’ll probably love you. I just wanted to give you the heads up. You’re part of the team now, remember?”

That familiar warmth is trickling in. Billy’s face is scalding once more. Thank fuck the lights are off. “Oh. Right. Cool.” His voice comes out rough and choked. Goddamn sentimental Steve.

Steve smiles, and pats his leg under the covers. “Good.”

That one touch sends shivers up Billy's shin.

And then Steve stands up and leaves, closing the door with a little snick.

Billy collapses back with a sigh. Well there goes his plans to get his rocks off.

After what Steve just said, Billy doesn’t have the heart to do it in one of his freaking guest bedrooms. While he's right down the hall.

 _So no sleeping it is,_ Billy thinks.

Tomorrow is sure to be fun.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy and Steve turn eighteen here, and thus are eighteen for the rest of the story!

Billy wakes blearily, the sheets a mess all over him, his t-shirt drenched in sweat and sticking to the length of his spine.

He groans as he opens his eyes, as if waking up from the worst hangover in existence, because _fuck_. Billy did not sleep last night.

It must have been one of the worst sleeps he’s ever had. He kept waking up, praying it was morning, only to check the time and find it was still one o’clock. For like the seventh time.

Part of Billy thought about leaving. He’d have to sneak out anyway, why not now?

But then he imagined Steve coming back into his room to check up on him, to tell him something else, or just for the company, only to find an empty bed and an open window.

So Billy stayed.

When it finally ticks over into 6AM and Billy can finally leave, he’s just then getting into a good rest. Because _of course._

Billy feels the first dregs of sunlight across his face and squints, sighing when he realises it’s dawn.

He crawls out of bed, all but throws his shirt and trousers on, trips up on the way down the stairs and rubs a fist into his eye.

Only to find Steve in the kitchen, buttering some toast.

“Hey.” Steve smiles.

Billy stops in his tracks. He blinks. “What – why are you up?”

Steve shrugs. “Couldn’t really sleep.” He looks Billy up and down with a wince. “You don’t look like you got much yourself.”

Billy huffs a laugh and sits down at the table. “Can say that again.”

Steve laughs. “First time sleeping after the discovery of alternative life is always the worst. You’re faring up a lot better than me.”

“You make it sound like all the sleeps to come are going to be so much better.” Billy says with a sweet smile as he steeples his fingers under his chin.

Steve laughs again and sets a plate of buttered toast down under his nose, then a mug of steaming coffee.

He made Billy coffee. And toast. And _buttered it._

Billy blinks, looks up.

Steve shrugs. “I figure you must miss breakfast, if you’re up at 6 for chores and shit.”

He’s right.

How the fuck did he work that one out?

Billy looks back down at the food. Nobody’s ever … made him something to eat. Not in a long time, at least.

Billy doesn’t really count Susan because that’s dinner and most of the time Billy is forced to help chop or stir or something.

That’s for everyone. That’s not for Billy. _Just_ for Billy.

This is just for Billy.

Billy feels a beam develop and slowly spread across his face. “Um. Thanks. Yeah. I usually skip it.” He bows his head to hide his flushed cheeks and takes a sip of the coffee.

It’s thick and creamy, the rich aroma hitting his tongue in seconds. “ _Fuck_ , Steve.” Billy moans. “Where do you get your coffee?”

Steve laughs, turns around and motions to a pristine silver machine.

Billy thought that was a fucking _kettle_.

“I thought that was a fucking kettle!” He cries.

Steve laughs, tips his face up to do it. “It’s obnoxiously big.” He admits, voice coloured in amusement. “I don’t use it that much. Instant stuff is fine, honestly.”

 _But you used it for me,_ Billy doesn’t say. He just sips his coffee and hopes the heat of it will excuse his red ears.

Steve sits with him at the table, a matching cup of coffee in hand (though it doesn’t seem to have the frothiness to it the same way Billy’s does, which makes Billy think Steve really does put his money where his mouth is and drinks instant shit when there’s goddamn professional coffee-maker right beside him).

He smiles at Billy over the rim and makes all of Billy’s insides lift up and flutter like crazy.

Billy munches on his toast in quiet, a softness seeping into his chest at the fact Steve is sitting with him, is awake at six in the morning, is making him _breakfast_ now.

Christ, Billy could get used to this.

“So what is it you usually do?” Steve breaks the companionable silence. “When you get up at six?”

Billy shrugs. “Anything that needs done. Cleaning, cooking, meal prep for lunch, then I usually just do some of my weights.”

“Yeah?” Steve asks, sips his coffee. “What do you lift?”

“Uh, like sixty, seventy.” Billy says. “Three or four sets, if I can squeeze it in.”

Steve blinks, pauses in his sip. “What – _seventy_ kilos? For _four_ sets? How many reps?”

“Ten or twelve, usually.” Billy replies. “No point in doing more –”

Steve gapes, eyes wide.

Billy laughs. “What – why are you surprised?” Billy asks, until he has the strangest thought that this might be impressing Steve: it somehow might _impress_ him that Billy can lift so much. Which sends a thrill right up Billy’s back.

“That’s not even my max.” Billy carries on. “I can do like one-fifty squat, I just don’t have them at home.”

“You can lift _double_ my weight.” Steve states, staring at Billy. “I knew you were ripped, but _Christ_ that’s insane.”

Billy’s whole head goes hot. “What – I mean, what do you weigh?”

“Like 75?” Steve’s cheeks are pink. “I think? I haven’t weighed myself in a bit.”

 _You don’t need to,_ is on the tip of his tongue, but Billy manages to curb it just in time. “Yeah, I mean I could totally lift you easy.” Billy says instead, which then just brings a whole host of mental images of Billy lifting Steve in his arms, Steve’s two thighs in Billy’s hands pressed to his chest, pressed up against a wall –

“Prove it.” Steve says.

Billy blinks. “Huh?”

“Prove that you can lift me.” Steve rewords with a grin.

Billy’s flush goes all the way down to his chest. “Fine.” He says, stands up. “It’ll have to be quick, cause I gotta leave already, but –”

“I mean, if you need to leave –” Steve rushes, eyes wide, as if he didn’t think Billy would take him up on the offer.

“Nope.” Billy grins, his heart a drum inside his chest. “Let’s do this.”

Steve stands up, swallows, and steps closer to Billy.

“How do you want me …” Billy trails off, his hands coming up, outstretched and ready.

“Whatever.” Steve gestures. “Whatever way is easiest.”

“Okay.” Billy states, and then puts both hands on Steve’s waist, secures his grip, and lifts Steve up in the air.

Steve laughs, loud and bubbly, as Billy does a spin and then throws an arm under Steve’s thighs to hold him like that: Steve’s legs around Billy’s middle, Billy’s arm supporting all of Steve’s weight, Steve’s hands on Billy’s shoulders.

“You really can! Jesus!” Steve laughs, and Billy grins up at him. “Look at those guns!” Steve reaches down and squeezes Billy’s biceps, currently straining as they hold Steve up.

The touch sends shivers along Billy’s arm and makes his muscles jump, but he’s hoping Steve won’t notice, hoping that it can be chalked up to the unexpectedness of the touch.

“See?” Billy says, not even out of breath, not even trying. “Light as a feather, baby.”

“I really am not.” Steve chuckles.

“Ugh, come on, I’ve seen you at practise, you’re hot shit.” Billy rolls his eyes, and Steve’s laughter kind of stutters into a cough.

Billy looks up to find Steve’s flush as bright as a flamingo. He realises what he just said, how that might sound.

“Uh.” Billy starts, lets Steve slip down and puts him back onto his feet. “You know what I mean.”

Steve’s hands are still on his shoulders, and their faces are close together, their fronts pressed.

“Um.” Steve breathes.

Billy swallows and takes a step back. “Better get going. Old man probably won’t be happy if his sandwiches aren’t done.”

“Right.” Steve nods quick.

Billy snatches the toast, throws his leather jacket around himself, and salutes. “Thanks for the breakfast.”

“Anytime.” Steve says. “Honestly.”

Billy smiles, nods with something more real, and leaves.

His heart hammers the entire way home.

That is until Billy’s doing some leftover dishes and catches sight of his reflection in the window. He rushes to a mirror and tries to stifle his groan to the best of his abilities.

His hair looked like that the entire time.

The _entire time._

*

Steve catches him at lunch, just as Billy’s sorting out his locker.

“Hey.” He says, rushed.

“Hey yourself.” Billy smiles. His hair looks a lot better. Billy made sure of it this morning. He tries not to toss it like a pony.

Steve blinks, and looks at Billy for a half-second before he seems to snap out of something and says, “El’s coming over tonight. The rest of the kids are too, and Nance and Jonathan said they’d try and be there. We’re all gonna try and sort out what happened. But since you’re the last person to see a Demogorgon, it’d be good if you could make it.”

“Yeah, course I’ll be there.” Billy says, confused Steve would even need to ask. “What time?”

“Can you come around 4?”

“Sure.” Billy smiles, but Steve still looks uptight about something. “Hey. What’s up?”

Steve swallows. “Look, like I said El is a little different. Don’t take it personally if she’s quiet or anything. It takes her a while to come around to new people. And the rest of the gang are kinda protective.”

“I won’t take it personal.” Billy assures. “I’ll be cool, don’t worry.”

Steve relaxes, but only a little bit, gives Billy a smile and a pat and turns to go.

“Steve?” Billy frowns. “Aren’t we getting lunch?”

Steve blinks. “Oh! Uh. I have a study group. I’ll catch you later, right?”

Billy frowns. “Uh. Right.”

Steve walks away, and Billy watches, an oncoming sense of unease coiling in his gut.

*

So El is … certainly different.

She walks in, wide-eyed, until she catches sight of Billy and her gaze stays there.

“Hi.” Billy says, and offers up a smile. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

El blinks. “No.” She murmurs. Her voice is soft, a little crackly and rough. Billy can’t tell if it’s from disuse of her voice and the unfamiliarity of speaking, or plain misuse of her voice by screaming.

He really hopes it’s not the latter.

“I’m El.” She continues.

“I’m Billy.” Billy smiles wider.

Billy can feel everyone’s eyes on him, least of all _Steve’s_ which feel like they’re attempting to penetrate into his soul. Max is practically clinging onto Lucas. And Mike looks ready to fucking pounce.

If Billy hadn’t clued in that this girl is clearly special, he’s pretty sure this reaction would be a neon sign.

“I know.” El smiles a little, just a lift of her mouth. “You’re Steve’s friend.”

Billy blinks, looks to Steve who’s beetroot. “I am!” He replies, grins at El a little larger.

El grins back.

“Okay?” Mike starts. “Are we done?”

El turns back to him. “Yup. We’re done. He passes. I think he’s nice.”

The whole group seem to collectively sigh while Billy feels his cheeks flush at this strange and instant approval from a thirteen year old. A very _powerful_ thirteen year old, actually. Fuck it, Billy’s allowed to be proud.

“Thanks.” Billy says.

El turns back to him. She smiles. “You’re welcome.”

Eventually they all sit down, and everyone seems to be holding their breath until El says, “It’s not open.”

Everyone sighs, including Billy.

“But it’s … hurt.”

Mike frowns. “Hurt? The gate?”

El nods. “Yes. Like wounded. It keeps being wounded.”

“Wounded?” Lucas says.

“Like – like _attacked_?” Max tries.

El brightens, turns a megawatt grin on Billy’s sister. “Yes. Attacked.”

“Like someone is trying to open it?” Steve guesses.

Billy nods vigorously, fierce pride at Steve for coming up with that glowing inside his chest. Jesus, he’s the supportive boyfriend now. At least in his own head.

“I think so.” El says. “I can’t be sure. Someone could be trying to … close it, as well. But it feels like it’s in-between. In-between open and closed.”

Will nods. “I feel the same. I felt it last week.”

Mike turns to him. “Why didn’t you say?” He asks, voice low.

Will shrugs, awkward. “I dunno. I didn’t wanna worry you guys unless I knew for sure.”

“If it’s not open.” Billy starts. “Then how come things from it are still alive? Like the demo-thing in my basement? Cause I thought the gate had to be open for them to stay alive? Since last time you closed the gate they all died, or whatever, in the underground tunnel.”

Yeah.

Billy fucking _listens_.

El smiles. “Good question.” She says, and Billy feels another glow of pride. Nobody else got that. “But I think … the one in your basement was half alive. It was weak. And starving. It was cut off from the gate. I think it got trapped there, maybe the night they all came to the tunnels. And it stayed alive, somehow. I don’t know.”

Billy really admires a thirteen year old shrugging their shoulders and saying they don’t have the answer. Most adults can’t even do that. “Fair enough.” Billy says. “But … there won’t be anymore, right?”

El shrugs. “Not unless they got lost somewhere else. Or got trapped and couldn’t get out.”

“So …” Billy trails off. “I mean potentially, a bunch of them could have gotten lost all over Hawkins that night. And a bunch of people could have found them.”

The whole room is silent.

“Potentially…” El murmurs. “What does that mean?”

The door suddenly swings wide.

Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers walk in.

“Hey. What did we miss?” Nancy asks the room, until her eyes land on him and she gapes. “Wait – _Billy_ is the new addition?”

Everyone’s eyes round on Steve.

“You didn’t tell her it was _Billy_ that found the Demogorgon?” Mike cries.

“I – it didn’t come up!” Steve tries, desperate, until he meets Billy’s gaze.

Billy, who’s watching Steve with no expression.

“Billy.” Steve tries, his voice totally different, as if there’s nobody in the room. “I got side-tracked with things, I figured it would be fine, she knows we’re friends now, we hang out all the time, there was literally no chance for me to talk to her we don’t have any classes –”

“Right.” Billy states, deadpan.

Steve looks helpless and lost, mouth agape as he searches for the words. Billy feels a pang of something that he ignores because he’s fucking pissed and _fuck Steve._

“ _She’d_ be fine with it?” Nancy states, and tosses her hair back. “She has a name, by the way. And I am fine with it. I just didn’t think it was Billy. No offence.” She says to him.

Billy makes a wordless gesture like, _go right_ _ahead._

“If you’d _told_ me, then I would’ve been prepared.” Nancy continues.

“I didn’t get any freaking time, I literally spend all my time with Billy!” Steve throws an arm out with a shout.

The room falls quiet.

Steve flushes to the roots of his hair.

The boys stare at him. Mike blinks owlishly. Dustin is wide-eyed.

Nancy raises her eyebrows.

Billy, in the meantime, hides his face and purses his mouth to contain his smile. Because he’s annoyed. He’s not letting Steve off that easy.

El catches his eye and smiles too.

Billy winks, and then turns to look at Princess Wheeler. “Right. What did you two actually come here for? Was it just to gawk at me?”

Nancy looks straight back at him. “No. I came here because I want to help.”

Billy very nearly opens his mouth, very nearly says, _and_ _how exactly can you help?_

But something stops him. He would say that, usually. He’s not past getting dirty and downright _mean_.

But the fact that Steve is watching him, listening to this exchange – something in Billy doesn’t want Steve to see that part of him. That nasty, cruel part. He knows that Steve knows it exists. He just doesn’t want to make Steve watch it. He doesn’t want Steve’s opinion of him to change.

Jesus. Maybe it’s _Billy_ that’s gone soft. As in full-frontal, all-in soft. No going back, no way out.

“So.” Nancy says to the room, once it seems Billy isn’t going to reply to that. “Can we carry on?”

El fills in Nancy on everything that happened between Billy finding the demo-thing to now, with Billy adding bits and pieces here and there – mostly because El looks at him for help at points, and Billy jumps in. It’s not often. But it’s enough.

Enough to make Billy realise what Steve meant. She’s not different. She’s not weird. She’s fragile.

Billy doesn’t have a doubt in his head that she’s a kickass fighter and a brave little shit, but he can see it for himself. It takes one to know one.

She’s fragile around people and she’s unsure in herself and she’s nervous when the spotlight is on her but she knows that for the majority, the spotlight is a necessity.

After a while Billy excuses himself to go take a piss, and he’s leaving the bathroom until he bumps into a small figure at the doorway.

“Oh!” Billy jerks, and looks down to find El staring up at him.

She’d been waiting for him.

“Hey there.” Billy says. He resists the urge to ruffle her hair. He’s not that close to her yet.

“Hello.” El says, even and measured. “I was waiting for you.”

“I can see that.” Billy smiles. He waits though, half-worried he’s about to be told off.

“I just wanted to let you know that everyone likes you.” She says. Then she looks unsure. “Well. Mike and Lucas are a little scared of you. And Nancy finds you … maybe annoying? Not much. But everyone else does. They just won’t admit it. Even the people who pretend not to like you still like you. Even Nancy, though she is angry that she likes you.”

Billy blinks. “Um. Thanks? I guess.”

“I can tell.” El says. “That it means a lot to you.”

Billy blinks. His heart rate kicks it up a notch. “Huh?”

“You care a lot about what everyone thinks.” El explains. “Or at least, what someone thinks.”

Billy can feel his pulse inside his mouth. “You – you can read minds?”

El frowns. “No. More see them. I think better than most people. I can read if I want to. If I try really hard. But I’m not going to.” She looks very serious for a moment, and then she smiles. “I just thought I would let you know. Because I could feel that you didn’t know.”

Billy’s flush crawls up his throat. “Um. Thank you.”

“Steve likes you the most.” El states. “A little bit more than Max. Not much though. But still more. And Max thinks you are very brave, and very good.”

And then she saunters off back to everyone.

Billy is left to stand there, agape.

*

So essentially things go back to normal.

Well. As normal as things can be with the knowledge that alien life may or may not be making its way into Hawkins.

It’s whatever. They’re all dealing with it. Kind of. In their own way.

The kids seem happy, that’s the main thing. And Max starts hanging out with El a little more. They seem like they getting along. Billy likes it. He really likes El. She’s honest in a way that doesn’t seem forced.

Steve is a little more tense. It’s hard not to notice. But they settle back into a familiar routine, after the last couple fuck-ups and miscommunications they’ve had.

They’re pretty much plain sailing at this point, back to banter and bickering around the kitchen.

Steve’s started up his pet-name thing again, which is always endlessly fun, but it makes him happy and that’s all that matters really. He loses some of the tension around his shoulders and neck when he does it, when he catches Billy unawares with a ‘ _looking sharp, Hargrove’, ‘some nice form there, handsome!’_ He always does it with a teasing wink, a cocksure little grin, like he just _knows_ what it does to Billy and it riles Billy all the way up and makes him want to push Steve against a wall and kiss his face off.

He doesn’t ever attempt a _pretty boy._ It’s an unspoken rule between them that it’s Billy’s thing.

Billy’s word.

Though he _does_ try a baby.

They’re in the locker-room and just messing about as they get changed before it slips out the way it always does, because Billy can sure as hell hide his feelings but he can’t seem to keep the _pretty boys_ from escaping somehow.

“Catch ya out there, pretty boy!” Billy calls out because Steve is finished first.

The problem is that Billy doesn’t even do it in a teasing way. He doesn’t even add his signature smirk or make it seem like a joke _at all._

He just says it, absentminded as if he does this all the time, as if it’s more of a familiarity than it is a taunt, and _fuck_ Billy really needs to stop referring to Steve as pretty boy in his head.

“Sure thing, baby!”

Now that’s really when the whole fucking world stops.

Billy has kept a note in his head of all the things Steve has jokingly called him, and baby isn’t one of them.

What’s more, Billy distinctly remembers his and Steve’s conversation after Billy called him baby and Steve pulled him up about it.

 _It’s more something you use when you’re dating._ That’s what Steve had said, right?

Billy gapes, his shirt half-way over his head, and pulls it down to find practically the whole locker-room staring.

“The fuck?” Tommy states.

“What?” Billy barks back, because Tommy seems to have forgotten his fucking place. “You got a problem with a little trash talk?” He licks his lips with a grin. “You can’t handle it, pumpkin?”

The guys all break out into relieved laughter, a little louder than necessary, and Tommy’s ears flush pink as Billy storms out into the gym.

What the hell. What the hell. Steve just called him baby. Did he mean it? Or is it another one of his jokes? And hasn’t this joke gone on for long enough? Hasn’t he proved his point enough, shown Billy how it feels enough, make him feel like he’s going insane _enough?_

But then Billy finds Steve tossing balls into the net doing a warm-up, and he looks over at Billy with a smile, and Billy’s heart flutters and his stomach sinks because nothing has changed. It was nothing.

Billy shakes it off and postures himself the same as usual, plays basketball and pushes it aside as a weird incident.

It doesn’t happen again. The names continue, the smiles stay the same, but baby doesn’t reappear.

Things go, more or less, back to normal.

Billy is still going over to Steve’s every night to cook some variation of mac n’ cheese and shout over stupid daytime TV shows where people answer questions and get money for it. He’s still sleeping at Steve’s and leaving at 6AM. They’re still spending all their lunch breaks together, which Nancy and Jonathan sometimes attend and which was weird at first until it was just meh and now it’s actually pretty much fine. They’re still the two kings of Hawkins High and still fighting off batted eyelashes at every turn. Steve is still ruffling Billy’s hair and squeezing his tight shoulders and being generally _Steve_ very much in Billy’s face.

Eventually, school finishes up for the summer. Billy needs some extra cash and an excuse to get out the house, frankly. Since there’s no beaches around, it means he can’t exactly escape into his surfing like he normally does during summer vacation. So Billy picks up some work at the local pool.

He lifegaurds a couple times a week and it’s an easy skoosh: he blows his whistle if anyone runs too close to the edge, and he smiles and waves at the girls – sometimes women, which, kinda weird – who lounge around on their beach towels trying to catch a tan. There’s only been a couple times Billy really needed to figuratively and literally dive in, and it’s mainly for the first-timers who are still learning or some idiot kids that try some new trick and end up bashing their head against the tiled-floor or falling into the water at an awkward angle because of their awkward-as-ass jumps.

Thankfully none of the female populace in Hawkins want him to come rescue them and perform mouth-to-mouth, which Billy is incredibly grateful for. It’s been, he’d say, a good half a year since he had to date a girl to prove his masculinity. Which is the longest he’s ever gone and feels wonderful, because it never gets any less uncomfortable or any more fun to date someone you aren’t attracted to in the slightest. Thankfully now Hawkins seems to have just accepted the fact that he’s straight and moved on, probably because of what a prude the town actually is, unlike in Cali where you’d walk past people eating each other in the hallways day to day, and if a month passed and Billy forgot he’d get a, ‘ _has that dick fallen off Hargrove? How long has it been?’_

Either way, that isn’t the case at Hawkins and it is 100% something the town holds in it’s favour. Among other things. Alien life excluded, of course.

Billy turns eighteen and it’s a quiet fanfare where thankfully Susan and Neil forgot, but Max didn’t and presents him with a new shirt and an embarrassed face.

Billy happily accepts and ruffles her hair until he gets to Steve’s house and finds out Max somehow informed him, because the smell of smoke is everywhere and the fire alarms are ringing and Steve, sheepish, pulls out some monstrosity that was meant to be a cake.

Billy still eats it, even though it’s somehow both tough and chewy at the same time. Steve makes the most hilarious face on the first bite, and they make another one together. 

Best birthday ever in his sappy opinion. 

Billy ends up finding out that Steve turned eighteen two months ago and didn’t do anything, didn’t cause a fuss. Billy also found out it’s because his parents forgot.

So Billy bakes him a cake right back. The look on Steve’s face is worth it.

So things are going good and Billy is being kept busy and he even made an additional friend at the pool, which is crazy. Who knew? Billy Hargrove: has genuine friends.

Her name’s Heather and she’s very chill, to the point that Billy thinks she might be a hippie but he’s too scared to ask. Most days they spend their lunch break just bitching about the customers and the pay. They eat their sandwiches with their hands smelling of chlorine and their hair still wet. Yup, they take showers everytime they leave the pool too, just to rinse off. In and out and in and out and in and out.

“I swear, it’s _falling_ out.” Billy rubs the ends of his curls.

“It is not falling out.” Heather states, her feet up on the office-room coffee table they all sit around and leave wet stains on. “You’d see it at the top of your head. Where hair _grows_.”

“Well then it’s definitely getting thinner.” Billy amends.

Heather shrugs, purses her mouth with a hum.

“That’s not a _no_.” Billy states.

She laughs, which makes Billy laugh.

So everything is fine. Everything is good. The weather is amazing, and Billy’s almost back to his natural golden colour, and he can also stop wearing shirts most of the time which is fun, only Steve hasn’t come to the goddamn pool once and met Billy’s new friend or seen him sit in his cool lifeguard chair because he’s working at Scoops Ahoy in the Starcourt Mall every fucking day and spends all his fucking time with Robin fucking Buckley.

Yeah.

Billy’s not jealous.

But fuck is he so, _so_ unbelievably jealous.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER IS NEARLY 10K!
> 
> Finally. Here it is. The confession. It took a wildly different turn than how I had planned it out, but I hope you like it. I literally made the party scene for Billy and Steve to get together, but then they decided to do something else so I just followed them. It makes this chapter BY FAR the longest. I don't even know how this grew so long.
> 
> On another note, absolutely love the comments on here. I adore this story, but it would not be over 50K, so in-depth and so plot-driven without the wonderful readers who leave me their thoughts <3 again, thank you.

So this is how it happens:

Steve tells Billy his dad got him a job at Scoops Ahoy, and that he has to do it and gain some ‘real life experience or some shit’, which he says while crossing his arms and huffing.

To tell the honest truth, he looked super pissy and like a spoilt little kid and Billy laughed and told him a service job might do him a world of good, actually, might make him more of a well-rounded person.

Steve just flipped him off and huffed louder.

Billy can bet that Steve’s never gotten those pretty hands dirty in his entire life, and he can’t help but feel like it could be a good thing Steve’s dad is making him get off his ass and work instead of lazing around for his eighteenth consecutive summer.

Like Billy has said, Steve isn’t selfish, spoiled, or arrogant. Billy wouldn’t love him if he were. He’s just what people who have never worked are: a little lazy. It’s nothing bad. Not something that can’t be worked out of him and whipped into shape. But it could turn into spoiled if everyone let it continue on for another ten or twenty years.

Billy had no plans of letting Steve stay unemployed for ten or twenty years. Even if Steve is just his friend, Billy sure as hell isn’t letting him sit around this mansion and hire maids to clean his damn dishes while he wallows about for the rest of his life.

Okay, so maybe that wouldn’t happen and maybe Steve would meet a girl and make her do the dishes but he’d be sweet about it the same way he’s sweet with Billy, but Billy still isn’t letting that happen.

The unemployed part. Not the meeting a girl part. Because Billy doesn’t exactly have much say – Christ, _moving on._

So Steve started working at Scoops Ahoy and at first he totally fucking hated it and told Billy the customers made fun of him in his outfit and he felt like half of Hawkins High were talking about how King Steve has a lame ass summer job and the hours are annoying as hell until suddenly, it’s not that bad. It’s okay. The people are nice. There’s a girl he’s working with. Robin, her name is.

Billy hadn’t been able to drop by and see Steve because their shifts seem to always happen at the exact same time during the exact same days and usually they meet up afterwards at Steve’s house once they’re both showered and changed and can bitch about work that day.

But by some miracle Billy manages a day off and he’s decided that he’s going down to surprise Steve and order an ice-cream even though he doesn’t particularly like it and check out his uniform he keeps complaining about and maybe meet this Robin.

He’s not worried. Steve doesn’t seem interested in that way. For one, Billy likes to think that Steve would at least tell him if he was. They’ve come at least this far. It’s not like Billy would enjoy it, but he knows Steve would come to him about this.

And for second, Steve mentions her in passing through something she said or something she did but she’s quickly swallowed up in their conversations about other shit.

So Billy figured she’s either fourteen and this is her first job, or she’s forty and a sweet little old woman.

Nope.

Billy walks into Scoops Ahoy and is assaulted with about three things at fucking once.

First one is Steve’s uniform.

Yeah. Steve wasn’t fucking kidding. It’s absolutely _ridiculous_.

Who the fuck allow their staff to wear tiny little sailor shorts? Who the fuck? Who? Billy would really love to know. Maybe it’s just because it’s Steve Harrington and his ass seems to be filling them out more than they expected, but _Christ_. In. _Hell_. Steve’s ass is currently on _full display._

Is this what he meant? Is this what he’s been meaning? Surely he’d have been a bit more embarrassed if he knew, a bit more than the occasional grumble about the ‘stupid uniform’. Surely Steve would have a little more self-consciousness to the flaunting of his ass in public? _Surely_.

… and okay, yeah, Billy gets how he sounds. Like a hypocritical, conservative asshole. He’s the one that walks around in shorts and nothing else all day, and it was practically part of the job description as well. Steve’s only selling ice-cream in a nautical themed shop with a sailor uniform on. It’s nothing scandalous.

But Christ, Billy can see Steve’s _thighs_ , a part of Steve undiscoverable outside gym class to Billy until now. For some reason it’s turning Billy loopy. He can’t even _see_ straight.

And then the second thing happens.

Steve laughs loud, a big booming sound that only Billy’s been capable of making Steve do, and Billy sees Steve’s face light up in that genuine way, mouth stretched wide, and Billy looks for the source and finds …

A girl.

A pretty girl. She’s got short bobbed hair and dark red lips, waving her hands as she speaks, and she’s the one making Steve laugh, and Billy catches sight of a little nametag across her chest that says _Robin_ and it clicks.

It’s her.

She’s the one Steve’s been working with. And apparently, she’s the one making Steve laugh the way only _Billy_ can make Steve laugh.

Billy walks right up and stops at the counter.

Steve turns around with a grin, which only brightens as he catches sight of Billy.

“Billy! Hey!” Steve cries.

Billy nods, turns his gaze to Robin who’s watching him curiously.

“What you doing here?” Steve leans on the counter with both elbows to be closer to Billy, which makes a little part of him triumph. Most of him is preoccupied with other things. Such as why Steve is laughing so goddamn loud.

Billy shrugs. “Had a day off. Thought I’d come down. I can see what you mean about the uniform.”

Billy’s hoping Steve will blush, will show some kind of reaction, but he only groans and says, “I _know_.”

Billy’s mouth falls open.

Now he knows Steve isn’t a prude, but he’s not this much of a flirt and he can’t seriously think –

“Look at what it’s doing to me!” Steve carries on, and then he takes his sailor hat off to show his slightly limp hair. “I mean it’s hiding my best feature! And ruining it!” He fluffs up the front and runs hands through the rest.

“ _Hair_ isn’t a best feature, dingus.” Robin cuts in, and Steve turns around sharp.

“Hey! It can be!” Steve looks to Billy as if for support.

Billy doesn’t really feel like playing right. “You gonna introduce me or what?” He waves between him and Robin.

“Oh!” Steve beams. “Robin, this is Billy Hargrove. Billy, this is Robin Buckley. You know she’s at school with us –”

“ _This_ is Billy?” Robin swivels around with her whole body, suddenly interested. “This is the famous Billy Hargrove?”

Billy feels something coil in his gut, not shame, more fear, because sure Billy is popular at highschool, but there’s all sorts of rumours out there. He doesn’t know what she’s been saying to Steve. He doesn’t know what Steve might think of him now, how she might have changed his mind.

“Aw come on, you don’t believe gossip at Hawkins High, do ya?” He smiles with a stretch of mouth and cocks a hip to lean on the counter.

Robin, weirdly, laughs.

Billy feels his gut drop.

Until Robin says, “Nah, I’m talking about how much Dingus just randomly adds you into conversation basically every day.”

Billy stops.

Steve is bright red, mouth agape. “I.”

Billy grins wide. “Huh? _Everyday?”_ He turns to Robin.

Robin nods. “Everyday. Without fail. Supposedly Billy did this, or Billy said this, or Billy can actually do that, or Billy already knows –”

Steve barges over and elbows Robin in the gut.

Billy watches in glee as Robin turns and punches Steve in the arm.

Steve rubs his arms and glares at her while she smiles at him.

“We have to get back to work.” Steve states, glowering.

Billy blinks. “Uh. Okay.”

Suddenly he feels unwelcome.

Steve looks instantly contrite. “Or you can stay. I can get you a discount on the ice cream.”

Billy waves him off. “Nah. It’s cool. I’ll just head. Got stuff to do anyway.”

Steve opens his mouth, but Billy cuts him off by waving over to Robin.

“Nice to meet you!” He salutes, a little awkward, and Robin salutes him back which makes him feel embarrassed as though she’s mocking him, even though it doesn’t feel all that mocking, but either way he turns to go and he’s nearly out the door before –

“Billy!” Steve calls.

Billy turns back.

“Come anytime, okay?” Steve smiles. “I’ll get you the discount whenever. Any kinda ice cream you like.”

A few customers in the booths look up and give Steve a curious glance at that, as if they might be able to get in on it.

Billy just smiles back. “Sure.”

He walks home and thinks about what the fuck just happened.

It’s been like two weeks and already Robin and Steve are as familiar with each other as an old married couple. And the thing is Billy doesn’t even think there’s anything _going on_ between them but it just cuts him up inside that Steve has apparently found someone else to make him laugh as hard as possible and that must mean Billy is pretty replaceable and that must also mean soon he’s gonna _get_ replaced, it seems.

He’s gonna get replaced by Robin as Best Friend and then he’ll just be, what, casual acquaintances with Steve? And it’ll become more and more awkward to come around to his house cause Robin’s there and they’re having a laugh about something Billy wasn’t there to experience and _fuck_ , Billy thought if Steve started dating it would kill him but it seems like Steve making a new best friend is just as bad because where does that leave Billy? How much space is left for Billy? What does it even mean for him? For _them?_

Billy thinks about it the whole way home, practically gives himself a headache with the worry, until he sees Steve after work.

“You could have gotten ice cream!” Steve cries when he opens his front door. “And stayed a lot longer! I literally only said we needed to get back to work because the boss is kind of a stickler for the rules and he literally won’t let me take the hat off –”

“Steve.” Billy laughs, holds a hand up. “It’s fine. Honestly.”

And something in him loosens up. Something in him goes still, calm. He realises that maybe, just maybe, he overreacted a little bit.

So they chat some more and Billy leaves early because he’s got work the next day at some fucked up time in the morning because it appears most people, especially most people over the age of fifty, like to swim in the _mornings_ and so they’re taking all of Billy’s late nights away. It’s the frickin’ summer. He hasn’t been to one party because of work.

“Stop by the pool.” Billy says as he’s leaving. “Come meet everyone. They’re super great.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve nods, grins wide as he says goodbye.

And then he doesn’t come.

Billy tries not to think too hard on it. He goes about his day and enjoys the sun and doesn’t stop by Scoops Ahoy either, because fuck that.

And he sees Steve later on again and Steve makes up some excuse, and Billy is really thinking hard and he’s trying to come up with a reason why Steve might not want to come around on his break to see Billy for like five seconds, it’s a two minute walk, Hawkins isn’t that fucking big, until it finally clicks.

He spends his breaks with Robin.

He’s hanging out with Robin.

It’s fucking obvious. Of course it is. Billy knew it. He’s being replaced.

And so that’s how it happens.

The feeling of jealousy, Billy will admit, is quite new. He’s never had much opportunity to feel it. Not because he’s always gotten what he wanted and never felt someone had something he wished was his.

It’s because Billy is selective with what he wants. He knows he mostly doesn’t get what he wants: that’s why he picks and chooses. He decides whether something is really worth wanting and if it is, then he’ll go after it with everything he’s got.

It’s how he got this physique of his. It’s how he got the social status he has. How he got dates with girls and grades in class.

But even then, these things are pretty superficial. They’re essentially meaningless. Billy picked them to want because they’re so meaningless. He could want them without the pain of wanting and not having them. He could want without truly wanting them.

He didn’t choose to want Steve. And Steve is most certainly not meaningless.

It’s an ugly feeling. The beginnings of it grew in Billy after his mother left, after he saw happy kids in the street and watched their parents love them. But Billy twisted and turned it into anger and sarcasm.

He didn’t want it to live inside him, this unanswerable pain, this intolerable pain. He’d take anything over it.

People talk about being jealous of someone’s car or someone’s grades or someone’s shoes and Billy really wants to turn and just say, _jealous? Of some machine, some material, some bit of paper? How can you be jealous over those things? They don’t mean anything. They don’t change your life. If you had those things you’d want something else. That’s how meaningless they are._

Real jealousy is acid in the throat and it hurts every day. It’s a mixture of bitter sadness and angry resentment and in the end there’s no crying or punching it away. It just is. It just always will be.

When Billy felt the first vestiges take hold of him, he did everything he could to shake it off. And then he’d catch a glimpse of Robin around town or she’d be dropped into conversation with Steve and it was back again, bright as ever.

So now he’s resigned himself to it, along with this love for Steve: this big heavy love for Steve Harrington with no home and no place to go.

But it feels like Steve is slipping away from him. Even as a friend, they’re hanging out less and less. Their work schedules and down time always seem to clash, and maybe if they lived together it would be different – Billy would see Steve first thing in the morning, last thing at night.

But they don’t live together.

Billy can’t afford to stay over at Steve’s because he’s working early the next morning and he’s already been late a couple times by doing that as it is. Steve can’t afford to get up at 6am even on the days that Billy _does_ sleep over, because Steve is working late that night and he needs his rest.

He misses Steve as well as everything else he’s feeling and it’s like a storm inside him, it’s like a raging hurricane that’s just managing to whip up more and more shit and growing bigger and bigger because of it.

So there’s a party. It’s at Tommy’s. The only reason Billy is going is because Steve is going. Steve told him he’d only go if Billy went.

They agreed to meet there. Billy is looking minty fucking fresh. Can’t remember a time he looked this good. The sun has done a world of wonders to his skin and his hair has been bleached a little yellow at the ends from chlorine but it’s kind of fucking doing it for him, he’s kind of fucking _digging it_.

He feels electric and ready for the night and he rocks up already excited, already looking for Steve, only to find –

Steve and Robin.

He brought Robin.

Steve brought Robin.

Billy’s heart plummets down to the core of the fucking earth and he stills where he’s standing at the doorway of Tommy’s house, until Tommy catches sight of him and comes over.

“Billy!” Tommy shouts as if they’re lifelong buds. “Glad you could make it!”

 _Glad I could make this party a little more popular_ , Billy thinks, but he grins and slaps Tommy’s back and makes nice until he finds the drinks counter and just goes to town.

He feels a touch to his spine, but he knows this touch, he’s memorised this touch. Sure enough, Billy turns to find Steve smiling wide, a little glassy eyed, with a sober and unimpressed Robin Buckley.

“Billy!” Steve slurs, and then he’s invading Billy’s personal space and draping himself along Billy’s front.

Billy catches Steve in surprise, blinks down at him. Steve smiles dopily and snuggles into Billy’s shirt.

Billy undid, like, twenty buttons. It’s basically just Steve’s bare face on Billy’s bare chest. He feels the heat of a thousand suns light up his face.

“He’s drunk.” Robin states.

“Yeah.” Billy huffs. “I can see that.”

Robin looks a little surprised at his tone, but it’s not like Billy can help it. Steve fucking _brought her._

“Bill’n wan’ a drink?” Steve slurs, looking up at his with those wide Bambi eyes.

“I’m good for now, pr – pretty much wasted, by the looks of it, you are.” He forces a laugh, embarrassment hot in his throat. He hopes Steve didn’t notice the slip up because he’d rather die than call Steve a pretty boy in front of Robin.

Steve juts out his bottom lip in faux sadness but his eyes are drooping already.

“Alright, big boy, let’s find you a sofa.” Billy tries to redirect Steve in the direction of the closest one.

“No!” Steve wails all of a sudden. “Wan’ed to hang out! Never _see_ you anymore!” He pouts.

Billy’s chest glows with a warm happiness. “I know buddy, I never see you either, but let’s just sit down first.”

Steve brightens almost instantly. “Kay!” He bounces off Billy and starts skipping to the sofa.

Robin follows behind them a little morosely and Billy almost want to snap, _you got no other friends?_ But he knows for a fact that she doesn’t, and she probably only came because Steve invited her, and now Steve’s drunk and she wants to make sure he’s doing okay.

It’s everything Billy would do in her situation but Christ, Billy just wants to turn around and say _it’s okay, Steve’s fine now, I’ve got him and I’m not going to let anything happen to him. Can you just let me have him for like_ ** _two minutes?_**

Either way, she follows them as Billy sets Steve down on the couch, smiling at the couple he jostles to make room before they get up and leave.

Billy sits down beside him. “How you doing?”

Steve groans, sinks into the cushions and throws both arms over his eyes. “Drank too much.”

Billy chuckles. “That’s for sure.”

Steve doesn’t reply.

Billy peers over only to find Steve mouth open, eyes closed, conked out.

Billy sighs. “Great.” He murmurs.

The party continues on around them, a gentle thrum of laughter and music. Billy blows air out his nose and takes a sip of whatever concoction he just made up.

Robin touches his arm where she’s sat beside him. “Hey.” She begins, voice low. “He only drank so much cause he was nervous.”

Billy frowns. “Nervous? About what?”

Robin shrugs. “I dunno. First party in a while. First time back at Tommy’s since the fallout they had. You know how Steve gets.”

Billy watches her. _I do,_ he thinks. “You know an awful lot about him.” He replies, tries not to make it sound too bitter.

Robin gives him a sideways look. “You think I like Steve.” She says it like a statement. Like a fact.

Billy swallows. “Don’t you?”

“No. Not beyond anything as a friend. I can’t see Steve like that.”

Billy rolls his eyes. “Sure.”

Robin blinks. “What?”

“I mean, you can at least be _honest_.” Billy says.

“I am being honest!” Robin defends.

“No you aren’t.”

Robin looks more puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Steve Harrington is like, the hottest thing in Hawkins.” Billy states. Because it’s true. It’s just facts.

Robin laughs. Actually _laughs_.

“ _What?”_ Billy asks, outraged.

“It’s just.” She grins. “That’s your opinion. It's not really a fact.”

“My opinion?” Billy barks. “How is this _my_ opinion? It’s practically what Hawkins shovelled down my throat soon as I stepped in here!”

Robin laughs harder, though she nods as if she totally understands.

“Oh come _on_.” Billy says, because he needs to. He can’t let her just get away with this. “Don’t act like you’re above Steve Harrington. Nobody is _above_ Steve Harrington. What, charming asshole flirt who actually loves to wear sweater-vests and is like a total fucking sweetheart? I mean, have you seen that hair? That smile? The _nose?_ He’s literally the prettiest thing –”

Robin is watching Billy with this self-satisfied smirk on her face, and it’s then that Billy stops and realises she’s got him exactly where she wants him.

“What was that you were saying?” She asks innocently after he pauses.

“Uh.” Billy tries. “Nothing. Forget it.”

“Billy ..”

“Huh?” Billy jerks around, heart in his throat, in his fucking _mouth,_ because if Steve heard any of that conversation then Billy will throw himself down a flight of stairs and roll himself right out of Hawkins –

Steve is still sound asleep. His mouth is a little agape, features slack, knocked out.

He said Billy’s name in his sleep.

He said Billy’s name in his _sleep_. 

Billy stares, waits a beat to see if Steve will do anything else.

But nothing more comes.

“You know.” Robin begins. “Funniest thing is, when me and Steve had a conversation about who the hottest in Hawkins is, _I_ was lead to believe it’s actually _you_ everyone thinks is top dog.”

Billy turns to her. “What? Steve said that?”

Robin nods with pursed lips. “Mm-hmm. Right out his mouth.”

“I’m top dog?” Billy states, scrunches his nose up. That doesn’t seem like a very Steve thing to say.

Robin laughs. “No. I believe his words were, _and Billy Hargrove is obviously number one now. Billy Hargrove? You haven’t seen Billy Hargrove? He’s, like, supermodel hot.”_

Billy gapes. He feels his cheeks boiling over _._ Supermodel hot?

Even if Steve ends up married with six kids, Billy can still die peacefully knowing Steve finds him _**supermodel**_ _hot_.

“But obviously, this is just what Hawkins says, right?” Robin continues. “That’s not actually his opinion.”

Billy is confused for a moment before it clicks and he realises she’s hitting him in the face with what he just said.

“Uh, I mean totally yeah.” Billy nods, waves a hand and tries not to show how much that one comment has lit Billy up from the inside. “Um. Should we?” He gestures to the currently unconscious Steve.

“Yup.” She states. Then she stands and yanks Steve up, who gasps and glances around wildly before he realises it’s Robin and flops into her.

Robin doesn’t even bat an eyelid. Where Billy is a blushing, stammering mess when Steve gets too close, her unimpressed expression doesn’t budge.

 _I_ _can’t_ _see_ _him_ _that_ _way._

Is she actually telling the truth?

They split a cab home and Billy and Robin haul Steve up to his house and set him down on the sofa.

Before Billy can stand up to leave though, Steve catches his wrist.

“No, I – I had something to tell you.” Steve slurs. His eyes can't even focus on Billy's face.

“Tell me tomorrow.” Billy reassures. “I’ll be here. I’m sleeping over. I’ll just tell the old man the party ran later that I thought.”

Steve shakes his head though. “No, s’ _important_.”

“Steve.” Robin states. “Tell him tomorrow.”

Billy frowns, looks between them, but by the time he looks back at Steve, Steve’s expression is determined.

“Okay.” He tells Robin, and Robin nods.

“Hey –” Billy starts. Because he doesn’t like the fact that Steve can just ignore him but as soon as _Robin_ says it, then it’s all fine.

“Tomorrow.” Steve smiles, gentle and soft, expression softening when it settles on Billy.

Billy can’t really argue with that.

“I’m gonna head home.” Robin says. “Billy can stay. I need to get home anyways.”

Billy looks at her in surprise. “You sure?”

He’s getting so many mixed messages. First she’s worried about him, now she’s leaving him? Billy can’t get it right, can't figure her out.

Robin gives him a once-over, and then she smiles. It’s a sweet smile, bright and cute. Billy can see why Steve might like her.

“Yeah.” And then she walks over to the door.

Billy glances down to Steve, who’s fallen asleep once again.

He jogs over to the door before Robin can leave.

“Hey.”

Robin turns, blinks.

“Thanks.” Billy smiles. “I’ll look after him. Get him back to you by noon tomorrow.” 

Robin smiles. “Billy. You really don't think me and Steve are gonna be a thing?”

Billy’s heart jumps, a flopping fish. “I. I mean –”

“Do you think me and Steve will get together?” Robin repeats.

Billy swallows. “He likes you. You like him.” He shrugs.

If Billy were able, he’d say something a little more indifferent and heterosexual than _you like him, he likes you_. Because that statement makes it sound like Billy doesn’t exactly like those two facts. It sounds weak and pathetically obvious.

He’d maybe say, _come on, I know Steve,_ or _, don’t tell me you can resist that charm_. Something similarly masculine and slightly douche-baggy.

But it’s kind of taking all of Billy’s capabilities to keep the stinging in his eyes inside.

“Billy.” Robin says. “I’m gay. I like girls.”

Billy stares.

Robin watches, gaze calm, expression impassive.

“Does Steve –”

“Know? Yeah.”

“And he’s –”

“Okay with it? Totally.”

Billy stands there and gapes at her for a moment. “I – I never.”

_Would have guessed._

_Met another gay person before._

“Knew.” Billy finishes.

Robin huffs a little laugh. “Yeah. I could tell. I thought I’d put you out your misery.”

Billy blinks, confused, until he realises what she’s saying.

The misery of Billy thinking that Robin and Steve liked each other. Because Billy was miserable. And she knew it.

Robin sees and she smiles. “I’ll see ya around Billy.”

He watches her walk away and something in him wants to do it, compels him to do it.

“Robin!” Billy calls.

Robin turns for a third time.

And Billy’s mouth is open. But it won’t come out. His jaw moves uselessly, his lips form the words, but he can’t say it.

He’s never said it.

It’s ridiculous, it’s _insane_ , but Billy’s never said it. He’s never told anyone. He’s never imagined telling anyone. 

He doesn’t know how to say it: how to let it out.

“I know.” Robin says.

Billy’s mouth closes. He stares.

Robin grins. She salutes him again, like that time at Scoops Ahoy. “I’ll see you soon, comrade.”

And then she’s on her way.

Billy keeps watch for a beat. She strolls down the road, not a care in sight.

 _Watch for the demo-crazies,_ he almost wants to shout. But on second thoughts, Billy is pretty sure she’d know what to do.

He closes the door and leans against it.

Billy finds himself grinning.

*

The next morning, Steve is quiet and contemplative and Billy can’t help but scream inside his own head _Robin is gay! She’s gay and you’re okay with it! You’re basically her best-friend! What does that mean? What does it_ ** _mean_** _, Steve!?_

Steve catches his eyes over the table a couple times and then quickly goes back to his toast.

Billy tip-toes around his strange, silent energy. He doesn’t exactly know what happened in-between Steve conking out on the couch and waking up this morning, but it must have been something.

“I gotta head.” Billy says, after a couple beats of awkward silence. “I’ve got work in like thirty minutes.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Steve nods. “I’ll get the dishes. You go.”

Billy smiles in private. Scoops Ahoy is already working it's magic, it seems.

“I’ll see you soon, okay?” Billy tries.

Steve just hums.

“Hey.” Billy puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Everyone gets drunk Steve. The party was shit anyways. Only reason I went is cause you were there.”

Billy laughs, but Steve looks up with wide eyes.

“Really?”

Billy blinks, then frowns. “Yeah. You know this. I told ya this. Couldn’t be bothered until you mentioned you’d go.”

Steve’s eyes are wide and shining as if Billy is saying something other than what he’s actually saying, and Billy’s head is growing hot, because Steve’s never looked at him like this.

“Steve?” He says, voice weak.

Steve stands, abrupt. “Billy.” He rushes. “I need –”

The phone rings.

Billy and Steve stare at it.

The phone _never_ rings.

At least not when Billy's been here.

Steve crosses over and picks it up.

“Hello? Oh hi dad. Yeah it’s fine. It’s a lot of shifts, but – yeah, I know. I _know_.”

He turns to Billy and gives him the universal eye-roll that essentially means _ugh_ and makes a wave-hand gesture to Billy.

Billy isn’t exactly sure what that one means, but he takes it as his queue to leave anyways. He makes a wave-hand gesture back and starts to leave. Steve looks disappointed, but it’s a brief flash and then he smiles in goodbye.

Billy makes it to work just in time.

Heather only gives him a raised eyebrow and throws a towel at his face.

Billy laughs and takes it, feeling light, feeling lighter than he has in weeks _._

 _She’s gay_.

She likes girls.

Robin likes other girls. She _only_ likes girls.

Everything suddenly makes sense. Her protectiveness, her leaving Steve with Billy at his house, her coming with Steve to the party that she knew nobody at.

They’re just _friends_.

Not that girls have to be gay to have platonic friendships with guys – hell, Billy isn’t sure what Heather is and he’s definitely sure she isn’t dating, but there’s never been an awkward moment between them. And it’s not just because Billy is gay that there’s never been a moment – Billy hasn’t told Heather, or anyone for that matter.

It’s because they’re just friends.

But knowing that there's no possibility. No chance in hell of Steve and Robin getting together. Christ, it's like a ten tonne weight has been shifted off his chest.

Billy feels foolish for ever thinking that Steve and Robin could like each other. First, Steve would _tell_ Billy, and second it would be obvious – they’ve worked together for a month now and there’s never been any signs.

Billy admits – at least to himself – that yeah, he saw red when he watched Steve laughing at something Robin said. He isn’t proud of it. But it happened, and now it’s done, because they’re just friends and Robin is gay and Steve knows and he’s okay with it and everything is alright again.

Billy takes his reigning place on top of the lifeguard chair and relaxes back, lets out a sigh of relief that today might not be so bad after all.

There’s not much to do, really. The pool is pretty quiet after the morning classes that thankfully Billy wasn’t in charge of today. Some kids just can’t be taught, and that’s all Billy is saying on that.

Plus the over fifties one is just freaking awkward. All that skin swinging about. Billy would rather scour his eyes out, being honest.

There’s only a few people milling around an hour in, and Billy’s only needed to use the whistle twice, which is a record.

And then he spots something he never thought he’d see.

Billy’s heart does a pathetic little flip in his chest as his cheeks burn hot, and he needs to clench his jaw and tell himself to _keep it together, Christ, you need to look_ ** _cool_** _._

So he tosses his head back, climbs down, and struts on up to Steve and Dustin.

Steve is wearing a long pair of swimming trunks that touch his kneecaps and a towel draped over his shoulders which conceals the best part of his chest.

He couldn’t be more covered up if he tried. And Billy thinks he might seriously be trying.

Dustin, on the other hand is wearing shorts, goggles, and a rubber ring around his waist.

“Why hello there.” Billy says as he sidles over to them.

Steve turns around.

He blinks, mouth open.

Billy knows what he looks like, right. The shorts they make you wear are kind of indecent, and this is by Billy’s standards. They’re hella tight and hug every curve imaginable, plus they only ride up to just bellow his belly-button, right where the hair into his navel begins.

Billy stands with a smile (and doesn’t flex, nope, not even slightly) as Steve stares at him.

It’s not something Steve hasn’t seen _before_.

Steve's seen Billy bare-chested, hell he’s seen Billy _naked_ in the shower room. It might have been a while since he's seen Billy like that, but it's still nothing _new_.

Yet he’s looking at Billy as though he’s never seen him before, as though Billy’s bare chest is something totally undiscovered, freaking _unknown_ to the whole world. It’s making Billy feel hot and flush all over; making him want to both hide away and strut around like a King fucking someone.

Steve’s cheeks are beetroot, Billy’s are beetroot, they’re standing there not saying anything and it should be awkward but it’s just _not_ , Steve catches his eye for a brief few seconds before he looks away and then comes back again, like a shy butterfly unsure of where to land – Billy doesn’t fucking know, he’s batshit crazy for Steve, sue him.

Dustin cuts the moment like a sloppy butter knife.

“Hey, dweebs, are we gonna move or what? I wanna try the dive board.”

Steve looks away from Billy and to Dustin, blinks as if regaining consciousness. “Uh.”

“Height’s gotta be up here, nerd.” Billy states, and holds a hand just below his nipples.

Steve stares at Billy’s hand.

Dustin walks right on up. He stands on his tiptoes. His curls just brush Billy’s palm.

“Not good enough.” Billy says.

“What?!” Dustin cries. “Look, I’m at it!” He flails his arms around.

“Nope. Safety regulations. Show me you can swim the whole length of the pool and _maybe_ I’ll consider it.”

Dustin crosses his arms and huffs. “You’re an asshole.”

“And you’re like, four feet.”

Steve laughs, quiet and soft and clearly meant for just himself, but Billy hears and he catches Steve’s eye and winks.

Steve blushes the brightest tomato-cherry that Billy has ever seen.

Suddenly, there’s the screech of a whistle.

Billy jerks up, looks over only to see his manager sprawled back in his chair behind the ticket counter. He gives Billy some eyebrow, a wave as if _get on with your job._

And yeah, Billy can see his point.

But also, fuck that guy. He does less work than Billy and Heather _combined_.

Billy makes a gesture that is 100% not a flip-off and turns back to Steve and Dustin. “Gotta go work, I guess. I’ll be watching.” He points to Dustin, and then takes off.

The shift is unbearably slow. Billy can’t take his eyes away from Steve’s lounger most of the morning.

Steve eventually sheds that damn towel to go swim, and it’s been a while since Billy saw his naked chest as well. It sends a thrill up Billy’s spine, even after all this time and all the oppertunies he's had to see it. But Steve slides into the water like he’s floating across clouds, the muscles of his back rippling, his long arms slipping through the water, and Billy is so fucking ridiculous that he needs to cross his legs in his lifeguard seat.

There’s a lull in the afternoon though. Steve and Dustin are still hanging about, so Billy manages to escape the prying eyes of his staff members as he sneaks over to where they’re at.

Having a very heated discussion, it seems.

“I’m literally not –” Steve hisses.

“You’re being _weird_ , I can tell when something’s up, you’re all blushy and I know when you like someone because you get all big-eyed and stupid–”

“Fine, okay, I – I met someone!” Steve explodes.

Billy stops dead in his tracks.

“What? _Who?”_ Dustin cries.

“At – the grocery store,” Steve splutters, “I met this girl at the store, I thought maybe she’d be here but she’s not, so I guess I’m just –”

“Oh hey Billy.” Dustin spots him behind the umbrella of the lounger.

Steve whips around.

Billy doesn’t know what his face looks like.

But Steve's eyes are wide, face white. As if Billy just found out something Steve didn’t want him to know.

“Um.” Billy starts. His voice is a rasp. “Sorry. I didn’t.” He tries, and then gestures behind him. “I forgot. Uh.”

And then he walks away.

There’s nothing else he can do.

Billy’s hands are shaking. He walks mindlessly, doesn’t know where he’s going, can't see where he's going, only realises where he is halfway past the showers.

He ducks into one and throws the door shut.

Billy turns the tap up to full blast and stands under it, lets it soak his hair and drench his shorts as he stares, unblinking, and the gritty tiles of the wall. Soon it starts to steam. Billy feels the dull burn like an ache in his joints, distant and numb.

“Billy? Billy?”

Billy hears a voice, but he can’t seem to make himself move.

It’s only when there’s a hand on his shoulder that he jerks.

Heather is wide-eyed, concerned. “Are you okay?”

Billy looks at Heather for a long moment. He gives a short shake of his head. 

"Come on, let's get out of here." She guides him toward the staff room and sits him down by the sofa.

Billy sits down numbly. He stares at his wet hands. Everything hurts. Everywhere on his body hurts.

Heather comes back with a towel. She puts it over his head and starts to dry his hair, her hands gentle and motherly.

Billy is silent.

"Look." Heather murmurs. "The backdoor is right there. You go. I'll say you got called away. Some emergency."

Billy stills her hand on his head, catches her wrist. The thought of going back out there and facing Steve makes Billy feel like he's going through a meat grinder. 

"Thank you." He whispers.

Heather smiles. 

*

Billy goes home and curls up in his bed.

He throws his clothes in a sopping pile on the floor, changes into sweats, and ignores the crackling of his walkie talkie.

‘ _Billy? You there? Where'd you go?'_

Billy squeezes his eyes shut and wills it not to happen, wills them not to come out, but they still escape clawing at the corners of his eyes. When the first couple tears make it past, Billy can't hold back the rest. He stifles them into his fist and bites his knuckles to concentrate on that instead of the overwhelming pain.

How stupid. How fucking stupid. How much more stupid can someone get? He's fucking stupid. God, he's so, so fucking _stupid._ Crying over this. Crying over the fact his best friend has met someone. Crying like a little kid, curled up in bed wanting the earth to swallow him up.

This was always going to happen. He always _knew_ this would happen. And for a second Billy really thought, had really _imagined_ that maybe- Jesus he's so _**stupid**_. Stupidest fucking idiot on the whole planet. 

_'Billy?'_ Steve keeps trying, and his voice tears into Billy's chest and leaves it open.

Eventually, Billy has to go into Max’s room and hand her the walkie.

Max looks up from some computer game she’s playing and stares.

Billy wordlessly shakes his hand and nods to the walkie. He knows his face is blotched. He knows his eyes are swollen.

“Billy? Come in?” Steve says.

Max’s expression begins to clear. She takes it from Billy’s fingers. She looks at his face for a second.

Billy doesn’t try to hide anything. He let's it all show.

“Steve?” Max feigns confusion. “Are you looking for Billy? I think he’s with Heather.”

There’s a long moment of silence.

“… Oh.” Steve says.

“Check back later.” Max carries on, effortless. “He’ll be home soon. He finishes work in like an hour. Did you forget he's in today?”

“Cool.” Steve says. The line cuts off. 

Max looks at him for explanation.

Billy goes back to his room.

He doesn’t come down for dinner. He ignores the calls, the shouts, then the pointed silence. Fuck it. So he’ll get a lecture and a shove off Neil, maybe a backhand if it’s a special day. The world won’t end. 

It already feels like it fucking has.

Call Billy a dramatic bitch, but Jesus, Steve Harrington really does live up to that heart-breaker name. Billy feels like his has been ripped out and slathered all over the Hawkins streets. 

There’s a soft rap on his door.

He ignores it.

The door opens.

Billy doesn’t turn around.

“Billy?” Max whispers. “I’ll leave it on the floor if you want it.”

Billy turns around.

Max is holding a plate of some chicken and mash, biting her lip, unsure.

Billy sits up. He holds his hands out.

Max comes over and places it in his hands.

Billy puts it down on his bedside table. And then he holds his arms open.

Max blinks, surprised. And then she comes forward and wraps her arms around his shoulders.

Billy holds Max to his chest and closes his eyes. “Don’t fall in love, kid.” His voice is like rocks through a blender.

Max tightens her grip. “Boys are stupid anyways.”

Billy laughs. He pulls away. Looks at Max’s face. “Got that right.” He ruffles her hair.

Max searches his eyes. “What happened?”

Billy doesn’t want to say it. He thinks about it, and then it’s like there’s a boulder in his throat. All Billy can muster is a grimace-smile. “Nothin’. Just me bein an idiot, as usual.”

Max stares at him. “Eat something. You’ll feel better. And then we can talk about it.”

She squeezes his shoulders. They're barely able to fit inside her palms. Then she’s off.

Billy picks up the plate. Takes a forkful _._ It’s still warm. He smiles. _And then we can talk._

*

He manages to avoid Steve for three days.

Considering that Steve and Billy have spent every day glued together for the past six months, Billy considers that an achievement in and of itself.

It’s still not long enough. Three days is nothing. Billy needs more time than this.

Steve catches him as he’s walking into work, hands on hips, determined.

“Hey.” He states like it's a fact.

Billy can’t move around him. He’s blocking the door to Hawkins Community Pool. There’s literally one entrance.

Billy is really fucking glad he's wearing shades. He's still not been able to get the red-rimmed look out his eyes.

“Hi.” Billy says.

“Can we talk?” Steve asks. “After your work?”

Billy won’t look anywhere near him. He focuses on the wall. “Sure.”

“Come to mine. I’ll be there. Four you finish, right?”

Billy nods. “Yup.”

The strangeness of the conversation isn’t really hitting him because Billy wants it to be over. He can’t really stand being close to Steve because it all just keeps bringing it up, it keeps coming to his mind, the _who is she who is she is what is she like what does she look like_ ** _why_** ** _her_** _._

Still, Billy doesn’t exactly want to hate some nameless faceless person for the rest of his life. He doesn’t want to hate anyone at all.

“Cool.” Steve says. "I'll see you then."

The rest of the shift goes by oddly fast.

It’s a scorcher of a day. Everyone ends up at the pool.

Billy is rushed off his feet the whole day, which is highly inconvenient because he wanted to sulk in his lifeguard chair with a XXL towel for a blanket and a cup of ice the way he's been doing for the last couple days.

But he's given one job after the other until he notices that it’s 3:45pm and he’s finishing soon; he’s seeing Steve and they're going to talk, and it feels important, and Billy's gut is heavy with dread and nerves and pain and _fuck_.

He arrives at Steve’s place on the dot.

Steve opens up immediately. He’s wearing a light tank, loose-fitting shorts.

Billy's wearing basically the same thing. He cuts his gaze every which way but Steve's face.

“Come in.” Steve moves for Billy. “I was just out the back. It’s too hot to be inside.”

Billy follows Steve to his backyard.

Steve crosses over to his pool and sits down, dunking his feet in.

Billy is a little sick of pools by now. But he does the same and ends up sighing in bliss as his aching, swollen feet are submerged in the cool water.

There’s a beat.  
  
Billy stares into the water. He doesn’t glance up.  
  
Steve kind of sways and leans closer to Billy. He’s so close. He’s always so _close_.  
  
Billy shuffles up a little. He can’t handle Steve near him right now.  
  
“So.” Steve begins.  
  
Billy swallows quietly. “So.” His voice still comes out rough and blunt, but that’s not exactly unusual. He plays it off as normal.

Steve throws a hand through his hair. “Billy.” He starts, voice suddenly changed.

Billy stares at the top of the pool. The little filmy layer of chlorine. 

“About the girl at the grocery store.” He starts.

Billy honestly doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to hear it.

“Yeah, I didn't really hear much —” Billy tries, because he doesn’t want Steve asking for advice or telling him her name or fucking anything, he doesn’t want to know _anything_. 

“There’s – it’s not a girl, alright.” Steve cuts him off.  
  
Billy’s heart falls out his fucking asshole. “You met a _guy_ at the grocery store —" His voice is raw, guttural.

It's fine if it’s a girl. It hurts like hell, but it’s _fine_. However, if Steve saw a guy at the grocery store and decided him, that guy, that one specific dude, was it. Billy would literally sob his freaking eyes out and still manage to keep crying somehow.  
  
“No, I — fuck!” Steve shouts, balls both his hands up and stares at a spot on the tiles.  
  
Billy doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t turn his head. He can feel where Steve’s eyes are on the side of his head; where is gaze is focused.  
  
“Billy. There was no one at the grocery store.”  
  
Billy blinks, screws up his forehead. “You — Huh?” He still doesn’t turn his head, still won't look at Steve.  
  
“Christ, I’m not doing this right.” Steve hisses, and then sucks in a breath. “Fuck. I said I would tell you.”

“What? Steve?” Billy asks. He resists the urge to meet Steve's eyes. He can't handle it.

“I made them up!” Steve suddenly explodes. “I made up that there was someone at the grocery store! Okay? There was nobody at the grocery store. I haven’t met anyone. There’s nobody.”  
  
Billy feels everything inside him ease. It all just melts away, all just seeps right out of him in relief.   
  
Because fuck it. He can pretend his whole life that Steve meeting someone and falling in love would be the best thing ever if Steve was happy. But Billy would be crushed and he knows it. It would absolutely crush him.  
  
“I made someone up,” Steve continues, “Because Dustin knows me too well and he knows when I’m off and he just kept asking me if I had met someone because, to quote him, “I’m being more of a dumbass than usual, but kind of like a dumbass in love”, and I didn’t want to admit it to him so I made up that I saw this girl at the grocery store —”  
  
“Admit what?” Billy asks. He can't look at Steve. His voice is small. 

And then Steve croaks, “Admit. That I’m.” He swallows.

Billy waits.

Steve sucks in air. “In love with you.”  
  
Billy’s heart stops.

“I’m in love you, Billy.” Steve says, tremulous. “I love you.”

Billy doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t move.

He doesn’t even feel his own pulse.

“Billy?” Steve rasps. His voice is choked.

Billy doesn't turn. “I love you too, Steve.” He says to the tree across the backyard. 

Steve doesn’t reply for a minute.

Billy waits, resists the urge to look, to turn, because he doesn’t know what’s happening but if what he thinks is happening is actually happening then Billy doesn’t know what looking at Steve will do to him.

“Is.” Steve whispers. “Is that I love you as in, I love you man, you’re my best friend ever and it’s super fun when we hang. Or is it, I love you. I love you like _, I love you.”_   
  
Billy swallows. “The second one.” He manages. His voice is a dry rasp.  
  
He waits. He doesn’t move.  
  
“Me too.” Steve whispers.   
  
Billy feels a floating sensation steal over his limbs, as if being lifted in the air.  
  
He turns his head to Steve.  
  
Steve’s already looking at him.  
  
“You mean it?” Billy breathes.  
  
Steve nods, eyes wide and glistening. “You love me?”  
  
“So much.” Billy states, his eyes filling with hot tears. “So much, Steve.”  
  
“I’ve loved you for so long, Billy.” Steve whispers. "It's insane."  
  
“How? How?” Billy babbles, and yet still he finds himself moving desperately closer, shuffling up to be nearer Steve, to really affirm that this is real.  
  
Because this doesn’t happen. Stuff like this doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t, not to Billy, not when he really really wants it. And Billy wants this more than anything he’ll want in his life.  
  
Steve’s eyes are wide as he looks at Billy. “What do you mean, _how?_ I should be asking you that.”  
  
All the blood in Billy’s body rushes to his head in a flush. “Steve, I’m serious.” He croaks, but he can’t help but inch his hand a little closer to Steve’s where it’s resting on the tiles, can’t help but lean forward into Steve so much he feels dizzy, the world off-kilter.  
  
“Because you’re beautiful and amazing and hilarious and sweet and you always say the right thing and you always stick up for me and you’re _sexy_ as hell—"  
  
“Stop, stop.” Billy leans down and buries his head into Steve’s shoulder, hides his face away. “Steve.” His heart is going a mile a minute, a _hundred_ miles a minute, skyrocketing into space and thundering against his rib-cage.  
  
Steve smells like soap and cotton, the same as ever, but it’s suddenly so different because now Billy can breathe it in. He’s allowed to be close to it. He’s allowed to do this.  
  
He squeezes his eyes shut and feels as if his face doesn’t know whether to crumple or split into a beam. He's pretty sure it's doing both.  
  
“How then for you?” Steve murmurs into Billy’s hair, voice warm and soft.   
  
“Cause.” Billy rasps. “Ever since I saw you. I knew.” He swallows around a knotted ball in his throat. “You’re brave, and good. You’re so _good_ , Steve. And you just get me, you know? Plus you’re gorgeous. You’re like, _woah_ gorgeous.”

Billy’s body is burning up like one big fever all over. He hates the fact that he just admitted Steve is _woah gorgeous_ , even though it doesn’t come close to describing what Steve actually is.  
  
“Ever since you saw me?” Steve asks.  
  
Billy is too embarrassed to speak. He just nods into Steve’s collar.   
  
Steve pulls back.  
  
Billy turns his face away.

Steve takes his jaw in both hands. He must be able to feel the heat of Billy’s cheeks burn his fingertips.  
  
“Billy.” Steve whispers. “Can I kiss you?”  
  
Billy closes his eyes. “Yeah.” He breathes and hopes that translates as: _please god do._  
  
He feels Steve lean close, senses Steve’s face only centimetres from his own.   
  
Billy’s whole mouth tingles: the roof, the gums, the lips. It’s as though he can already feel Steve’s mouth on his.   
  
But then there’s a soft, warm pressure against his cheek. A pair of lips pressed to the side of his face.  
  
Steve kisses his left cheek, and then the right. And then he kisses Billy’s closed eyelids, brushes back some of Billy’s hair and kisses his forehead.  
  
Billy lowers his head. Tears press, heavy and insistent, against his closed eyes. They seep out and start to stream down his face.  
  
Steve pulls back sharply. “What’s wrong?”  
  
And Billy swallows with a smile, shakes his head. “Nothing. I’m happy. I’m _really_ fucking happy.” Deliriously happy. Ridiculously happy. Unbearably happy.  
  
“Are you sure?” Steve asks, still cradling his face as if it’s something important, something almost precious.  
  
Billy laughs, the sound practically strangled. “Yes. I’m very sure.” He opens his eyes and takes in Steve’s worried expression, laughs harder and reaches up to cup Steve’s face too.  
  
It feels so strange, so surreal, to hold Steve Harrington’s face in his hands after having been in love with him for so long. Or maybe it’s surreal because Billy does it _while_ being so in love with him.  
  
Billy’s never held the face of somebody he loved before.   
  
He presses their foreheads together and laughs, for the simple joy of laughing, and feels Steve laugh back. He ducks in with Steve caught between his two palms, and kisses the apple of Steve’s cheek currently bunched-up in a smile.   
  
Steve’s laughter hitches. Billy does the same to the other side. Steve’s skin is soft underneath Billy’s mouth, wonderful and unreal because Billy never thought this was something he’d ever experience in his life.  
  
It’s something he’s resigned himself to watching another person do. Something he assumed he’d have to get used to seeing happen as an outsider. And now Billy’s the person he would have been jealous of most in the entire world.   
  
Steve holds Billy’s wrists which are holding Steve’s face, until there’s a sensation of wetness and Steve sniffs.  
  
Billy pulls back to find Steve crying.  
  
Billy’s heart jolts, plummets. “Did I do something —"  
  
“No.” Steve shakes his head with a beam. “No, I’m happy too. I’m like, _too_ happy. It’s too much to handle.”  
  
“Yeah?” Billy chuckles back, presses his forehead to Steve’s shoulder, turning shy. “Me too.” And then he realises that doesn’t make much sense and so rephrases, “I feel ... like, way too happy.”  
  
“Good.” Steve says as he cards his fingers into Billy’s hair, scratches the base of his skull. It feels insanely good. “Cause I’m so fucking happy I don’t even know how to function.” He laughs, a little high-pitched and gleeful. 

Billy just nuzzles his face into Steve’s neck. It’s going to take like, three to five working weeks before he can wipe this grin off.

“I’m not really functioning right now anyway.” Billy admits with a chuckle.

There’s too much going on and Billy wants it all, he wants everything, but it’s like a million endless possibilities just opened up beneath his feet and he can’t decide what one first.

Steve presses his forehead to Billy’s shoulder. “We can not function together then, for a little bit.”

Billy pulls Steve into his chest and wraps an arm around his waist. “Yeah.” He murmurs. They hold each other like that, feet in the pool, arms around each other, breathing in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun google searches I've made for this story: 'origin of the word dweeb', 'did they have coffee machines in the 1980's', 'how much can a strong man lift'
> 
> next chapter bumped up to E because reasons: if you dislike explicit content, then I would say not much else plot wise happens in chapter 10 other than that. chapter 11 will be a little more relationship-focused. and that's it. that's the end of this fic :) because i got another harringrove idea that won't leave.
> 
> also this chapter is like ten thousand words, i'm literally updating with the expectations i'll get like one comment tomorrow because of how long it will take to read.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it's not exactly 10K, but it is ... 8. This is 8K. I should also point out that this is all one (1) scene. I can't believe this story might actually be like 70,000 words by the time I'm done. A literal novel. Why have you all put up with this?
> 
> Updating so soon because most of this was written along with the last chapter, but I had to cut it off because last chapter was nearly it's own standalone.
> 
> If you don't enjoy explicit content, this chapter is not for you. You can leave it out and I won't mind. But I hope you enjoy, because it was super fun and enjoyable to write <33 Let's see some boys communicate!!

Billy doesn’t know how long they both sit there, silent and still, basking in each other’s presence.

After a moment, Steve begins to run a hand up Billy’s back. He pulls him closer against his body and trails fingertips up his spine.

Billy laughs a little bit for no apparent reason, presses himself to Steve harder.  
  
“Guess we should wait before we kiss.” Billy murmurs into Steve’s chest, solid and strong. “If just this is sending us goddamn loopy.”  
  
Steve only breathes for a moment. And then he says, “Do you mean that like, I seriously couldn’t handle it, or like, I want a kiss and I’m giving you a hint.”  
  
“Always the second one.” Billy whispers. Steve just fucking _gets him_.  
  
Steve laughs freely.

Billy lifts his head, meets Steve’s beautiful gaze filled with such pure shining happiness and has to — _has to_ — lean in instantly.  
  
Steve jerks back, presses two fingers to Billy’s mouth.  
  
Billy stills in a second.

It’s too good to be true. Of course it fucking is. Steve doesn’t want to kiss. He loves Billy, but not like that.  
  
“Not here.” Steve smiles wide: wider than Billy’s ever seen, so wide it could split his whole face. “I have kinda bad memories of this pool and I want our first kiss to be somewhere special.”  
  
Billy’s entire heart turns to a ball of goo inside his chest, or something else happens that would produce the closest sensation. “ _Steve_.” He huffs, lovestruck. Fuck, he's an utter sap at this point.  
  
Steve is already looking around, whipping his head this way and that. “No, not by the tree, maybe the kitchen — it’s not really romantic though–”  
  
“Steve.” Billy says, firm.  
  
Steve turns to him.  
  
“It doesn’t matter.” Billy murmurs, strokes a thumb over Steve’s cheekbone. “Anywhere would be special. This right here is pretty much the best memory I’ll ever have.”  
  
Steve’s face goes soft and slack, his eyes slanted with warmth. It’s a face that’s strangely familiar, that Billy’s seen in the kitchen a few times when they’re cooking and after he found out about the Upside Down.

Billy’s only just now able to put a finger on it.

Love.

It’s love.

There’s no other word for it.  
  
“Besides.” Billy carries on, tucks a strand of hair behind Steve’s ear. He’s literally _always_ wanted to do that. “If we kiss here, maybe you’ll have one good memory to combat the shitty ones you just said.” He laughs. “If it would even be a good memory for you. I don’t know. But worth a try?” He asks, hopeful.   
  
Steve stares at him, doesn’t blink, doesn’t do nothing.   
  
And then he jumps up and runs into the house.  
  
Billy is stunned for a moment to do anything. And then he stands up too.   
  
“Steve?” He calls.   
  
Maybe he’s getting something.

Billy follows.  
  
He finds Steve hunched over the kitchen counter, scribbling on a little notebook clearly meant for shopping lists.  
  
“Steve?” Billy asks.  
  
“I’m writing that down.” Steve states. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said and I wanna remember it. And also everything else you just said to me. What was it — ‘the first time you saw me you knew ... I’m woah gorgeous’ ...”   
  
“Christ, Steve.” Billy huffs, embarrassed and hot, but in a warmer way than usual. It doesn’t sting quite as sharply, the embarrassment. It almost feels _nice_. Weird.  
  
He stands there and crosses his arms until Steve is done and puts the pen down with a clatter, rushing over to Billy with his arms outstretched.  
  
“Ah, Ah, Ah.” Billy holds up a finger, waggles it. “What if this location doesn’t suit me?”  
  
Steve looks crestfallen in a second. He glances around, biting his bottom lip.  
  
“I’m kidding, you silly dork.” Billy breathes, walks Steve up to the wall and kisses him against it.   
  
Steve’s mouth is plush and he tastes warm and a little minty like maybe he prepared, maybe he’d _thought_ about this. Billy feels himself grow light-headed and faint in the space of a second. He feels Steve’s hands run all over his back, his waist, his shoulders, but Billy just grasps a fistful of Steve’s hair and kisses him so hard their teeth connect. He kisses him until Steve’s mouth opens and Billy’s tongue touches Steve’s and it’s everything he imagined, hot and wet and _desperate_. It’s also sloppy, all over the place, and maybe if they slowed down they could enjoy it but Billy really just needs to kiss Steve as hard as he possibly can. Steve’s tongue thrusts against Billy’s and Billy thrusts back and his whole body is tingling, floating, shaking all over as he moans into Steve’s mouth and feels the vibrations of Steve moaning back.

Billy’s so hard he’s never experienced anything _like it,_ feels as if he could saw through metal with his dick currently straining against his zipper in the best attempt at escape of its whole life.  
  
They’re pressed head to toe though, one of Steve’s leg slotted in between Billy’s and thankfully, _blessedly_ , Billy can feel an answering hardness on his hip. He grinds down on it and hears Steve moan low and long, and then suddenly that sound travels straight to the base of Billy’s cock and before he knows it his vision has gone totally black and he comes.  
  
“St-ee-ve.” Billy chokes, stuttered and groaned as his orgasm takes over.   
  
“Yeah, Billy —“ Steve pants, clearly not realising.  
  
The moment clears, the haze fades. Mortification burns his whole body and boils him from the inside.   
  
Billy keeps his head low and untangles himself from Steve’s arms quietly.  
  
“Billy? Billy what’s wrong?” Steve takes a hold of his face quick, not letting him go far.  
  
“I ... I just ... came.” Billy admits, in the smallest voice he’s ever used. Because of course he goddamn did, He's eighteen years old and this is the first time he's been with someone he actually _wants_. It's melting his freaking mind, clearly.  
  
“Really?” Steve breathes. “Christ. From that?”  
  
Billy swallows. “I — I know it’s lame —"  
  
_“Lame?”_ Steve repeats, incredulous. “Billy it’s hot as fuck. Can I feel you?”  
  
Billy glances up and meets Steve’s eyes. “Feel me?” He frowns.  
  
Steve face is flushed, eyes wild, hair a mess. Billy’s never seen him like this. It’s totally addictive. “Yeah. Feel how much, how wet. Fuck, I might come from it.”   
  
Billy stares, his cock giving a twitch and then a full on throb. “You — _you_ might come?”  
  
Steve nods, frantic, and then he’s lowering his hand and wriggling fingers underneath Billy’s waistband.

Billy gasps, still a little oversensitive .

“Wanted to do this for ages.” Steve murmurs close, his lips catching on Billy’s lips. “Just imagined holding you, tasting you. How it would feel. How you would sound.”  
  
Billy, incoherent, groans.  
  
“Wanted to get to my knees most days and just ask if you wouldn’t mind.”  
  
_“Steve.”_  
  
“Just put my hands together and beg for it.”

Billy feels like he’s gonna pass out, Honest to Christ.

Steve’s hand has found its way inside, and he pulls back Billy’s boxer shorts, slides down and touches Billy’s half-hard cock with his fingertips.  
  
“Fuck, back up already?” Steve whispers as he feels through the cum in Billy’s pubic hair. “There’s so much. You had so much in you, didn’t you?”  
  
Billy moans louder, his cheeks on fire as he tilts his head back. He nods senselessly to whatever Steve is saying. Didn’t even know Steve was _capable_ of what he’s saying.  
  
Then Steve reaches down with his other hand, cups Billy’s balls in gentle fingers as he wraps a whole hand around his shaft. “So smooth, I can feel the veins. Can feel how big you are. Can’t wait to have it in my mouth.”  
  
And then Billy is fully hard and aching, and all it takes is one more tug before he comes again all over Steve’s hand.  
  
Steve groans with Billy, rides out his orgasm, milks him for everything he has until Billy is oversensitive, overstimulated, back on earth and realising that it’s happened **_again_**.  
  
“I — I, sorry —” Billy gasps as if surfacing from underwater.  
  
“Stop.” Steve states, rough and commanding. “It’s fucking hot. So fucking hot it’s like insanity. How many times can you usually go?”  
  
Billy shakes his head, buries it into Steve’s neck, hides it way. “Don’t usually – go this much.” He pants. “Usually last a long longer too. I just — it’s just too much, it's been a while since I —”  
  
And then Steve pulls his hand out, covered in Billy’s cum, and sucks a finger into his mouth.  
  
Billy gives a wild groan, feels himself twitch yet again even after orgasming twice, feels his legs turn to jelly like he could literally pass out. He might actually fucking _pass out._ _  
  
_“Tastes so good.” Steve murmurs. “You must eat a lot of fruit. Fuck, I want you to come down my throat.”  
  
Billy needs to lean against Steve and breathe for a minute before he replies. “Guess I shouldn’t have worried you might not be interested in shit like this.” He chuckles.  
  
Because it was the first thing that came to his mind, when Steve pulled back after Billy went for the kiss.  
  
_What if he doesn’t want to be together like that? What if he loves me, but just not in the same way? What if he’s not absolutely burning every second we’re near? What if the idea of being with a guy is too weird?  
_  
Of course, Billy couldn’t have predicted **this.**

“Shit like what?” Steve gasps, totally out of breath.

“Like – kissing, touching, shit.” Billy mutters, embarrassed.

“Are you nuts?” Steve asks. “Have you _seen_ you? The whole school wants you. Including most of the guys. Seriously, they’ve all admitted it. Sure when they’re drunk or high or post-game buzzed, but I’m telling the truth. They all talk about how you're the hottest guy they've ever seen.”  
  
Billy perks up, looks Steve in the eye. “What? Really?”  
  
Steve’s mouth goes tight-lipped. “Why, you interested?”  
  
Billy laughs at the absurdity, but Steve’s mouth only grows thinner and Billy shakes his head.  
  
“Steve — I’m laughing at even the prospect of leaving this for some random loser at Hawkins High. _This_.”   
  
Steve smiles, shy and sweet.  
  
“Everyone at Hawkins, though?” Billy muses, tilts his head. “Does that mean you?” His voice goes husky-sweet without even meaning to. “Did you want me for a while? As soon as you saw me?” He hopes, he hopes, he _hopes_.  
  
“I thought you were hot as shit, but a total asshole.” Steve states, plain and dry. “Which was really inconvenient and I couldn’t look at you most days.”  
  
Billy laughs, bright and happy.  
  
“It’s only when you turned into the total sweetheart I know you really are that I was beyond fucked.”  
  
Billy chuckles into Steve’s hair and smoothes a hand up his side. “A sweetheart? You really think?”  
  
“Don’t try and deny it.” Steve laughs. “I know you. Tough on the outside and a little softie with a heart of—"  
  
Billy sinks to his knees and presses his mouth to Steve’s clothed crotch.  
  
Steve makes a sharp noise and throws his head back so hard it hits the wall.  
  
“I’ll guess I’ll just have to prove you wrong then.” Billy whispers before the undoes the zip.  
  
“Billy—” Steve whispers, tremulous as his shaking hands come to hold Billy’s curls.  
  
Billy rolls down Steve’s Levi’s to what’s underneath. Steve’s boxers are black, cotton, and Billy pushes his nose into them and inhales deep.

The scent is thick here, concentrated: Steve’s stale sweat and ball-musk and Billy’s eyes close on instinct, his hands coming up to grip the backs of Steve’s legs, the fullness of his ass as he relishes it.  
  
“I can’t —" Is as far as Steve gets, before Billy pulls down the waistband and takes Steve’s cock into his hand.  
  
Steve groans deep in his chest, low and guttural.

Billy strokes him and marvels at the feel, the weight, the little pink head coming up, peeking out of Steve’s foreskin. He’s aching in his own jeans but it’ll have to wait, because Billy’s already come twice and Steve hasn’t whatsoever.   
  
“Could you come again? After this?” Billy whispers as he runs his lips along Steve’s shaft, just the gentle dryness of his mouth.  
  
“Mm? Wh?” Steve blinks bleary eyes down at him. “Of course I can come after this, I’ve got Billy fucking Hargrove —“   
  
Billy swallows Steve down to the root.  
  
Steve bucks wildly, moans with a wild kind of desperation, but Billy keeps a grip on his backside as his throat clenches around Steve’s cock. He eases back up, flicks his tongue along the tip of Steve’s pretty little cock, the head of his erection pulsating with its own heartbeat.

Billy’s never actually done any of this before, though he’s imagined it a million times and he wants to make it good for Steve, needs to make it amazing, needs it to be the _best_.  
  
“I — hnghh — Billy —“ Steve is saying, nonsensically, thrusting into Billy’s mouth. Billy is enjoying this too much to really take his time, enjoying the noises and the taste and the feel, plus so is Steve it seems, because all it really takes is for Billy to swallows him down again, hand coming up to cup Steve’s balls and give them a tug before Steve is done.  
  
He comes with a shout and a shudder.

Billy coaxes him through it and licks up every last drop, until Steve’s legs are trembling and he’s struggling to hold himself upright. Only then does Billy let go with a soft pop, tuck Steve back into his boxers and kiss his crotch, his fuzzy hairline, his bony hip.  
  
“I — I’m usually better, at lasting.” Steve manages after a few gasps. “It’s just —”  
  
“It’s fucking hot. I love it.” Billy gets to his feet and kisses Steve’s face before he takes Steve into his arms, pressing his nose into Steve’s shoulder once again — something that is quickly becoming his favourite thing to do minus basically all of this.   
  
“I love you.” Steve replies, which just makes Billy’s whole head light up in flames.  
  
“I love you too.” He whispers.  
  
They stand there and hold each other for a while, both their clothes a mess, their underwear dirty and ruined, but none of it matters. Nothing fucking matters to Billy.  
  
Until Steve says, “It’s been a while since I did this.” His voice is soft, unsure. “Since I was with anyone.”  
  
Billy swallows. It clogs up his throat, the fact that Steve has done this before.   
  
He’s _had_ this before.   
  
Billy can’t last two seconds with Steve touching him, and for Steve it’s probably just because he hasn’t gotten laid in a while.   
  
“Yeah.” Billy croaks, rough. “Is that why ... you’re so hot for me, I guess?”  
  
There’s a beat, and then Steve pulls away to frown at Billy. “What are you talking about?”  
  
Billy tries to swallow. “Well, you know, it’s been a while for you.”  
  
“What’s that got to do with it?” Steve scrunches his face up. “What about you? How long for you? That doesn’t matter.”  
  
“Me?” Billy says. “I mean I’ve never. Been with anyone.”  
  
Steve knows this. They _talked_ about this. They had a conversation about this.  
  
But Steve blinks with wide eyes. “Oh my god. I forgot you’ve never done this before.”   
  
Bill clears his throat. He looks away with a sharp nod.  
  
“I’m your first.” Steve murmurs.  
  
Billy nods again. His face is in flames.  
  
“I’m the only person.” Steve adds, and his arms come up to wrap around Billy’s sides. “The only one.”  
  
Billy keeps his gaze trained to the wall. He can’t look Steve in the face when he’s admitting this.  
  
Because this is Steve Harrington. It’s King Steve. It’s the most popular boy in school: best kisser, best date, best _everything._  
  
“What’s wrong?” Steve strokes his face. Billy tries not to lean into it.  
  
“You’ve ... done stuff.” Billy manages.  
  
“... Yeah?” Steve looks confused.  
  
“This isn’t. That special. To you.” Billy shrugs, even though his chest burns with acid.  
  
It’s alright if Steve loves Billy in a different way to him. Maybe Steve isn’t capable of loving Billy the same way Billy loves him. It’s a lot. It takes a lot out of you. Billy can understand. Steve has dated quite a few people and he’s been in love before and maybe this is just that. Maybe love for Steve is just — _that_. Having sex, getting laid, going on dates, holding hands in the school hallway and liking them just enough to hang out.  
  
It’s not a future house and a shared bedroom and a promise of forever. It’s not tenderness and understanding and only one person being it.

It’s not _Billy’s_ version of love.   
  
Billy can live with it. He’d have Steve. He’d accept it.  
  
“Billy, what do you mean this isn’t special?” Steve whispers. His voice is laced with hurt.  
  
Billy won’t meet his gaze. “You’ve — dated lots of people, and been in love before, and this isn’t all that special to you.”  
  
Steve stares at him. Billy can feel the heat of that stare. “I’ve dated before, yeah. And I wanted to be in love. And once I was close, with Nancy. But nothing, _nothing_ Billy, in my life comes close to this.”  
  
Billy swallows. He keeps his eyes downcast. “What do you mean?”

Because one minute Steve’s telling him it’s been a white since he did this, and now he’s saying something else.  
  
“I mean that I’ve only ever told one other person I loved them.” Steve states. “And that was Nancy Wheeler. And I told her because I wanted to hear it back. I wanted to know someone felt that way for me. And it hurt when she told me she lied, she didn’t love me at all. Because it felt like I’d lost something. Like the ability to be loved by someone. Or maybe just self-respect. But I’ve never felt anything like what I feel for you, Billy.”  
  
Billy feels his cheeks heat, his chest blossom open.  
  
“Billy.” Steve takes his face in his hands and tries to catch his gaze. “I told you I loved you because it took everything in me to keep it quiet every day. Not just because I wanted you all to myself, and I wanted to touch you and be close to you, but because I wanted you to _know_. You deserve to know how wonderful you are. It felt ridiculous to call you my best friend, say you’re good at basketball to people, tell them yeah Billy's top dog. When in reality you’re fucking everything to me. And you didn’t even _know_ _it_. I could tell that you didn’t even know it. You really believed I just saw you as some fucking friend. So I told you I loved you. So that you would finally know. And realise how wonderful you are, at least to me. I never expected it back. I didn’t do it because I only wanted to know you felt the same. I just wanted you to _know_.”  
  
Billy’s throat is blocked. He lifts a shoulder and presses Steve's hand on his face to it. Still doesn’t meet his gaze. Still can’t meet his gaze.  
  
“Yeah, I’ve had girlfriends and we did stuff. So what? So have you. So has everyone. But I’ve never had this. _This_ is the most important thing to me.”  
  
Billy swallows. “I never told you how I felt cause I didn’t want to lose you.” He whispers, because to make it quieter makes it easier to say. “I thought it would fuck everything up. I thought you'd think I was nuts. But I always wanted you to know, mostly so I wouldn’t have to pretend like I didn’t love you. Killed me every fucking day. It's goddamn exhausting, pretending not to love you. I’d imagine I was Wheeler sometimes. I used to pretend I was Nancy fucking Wheeler, used to wonder what it would be like to know Steve Harrington loved you.”

Steve takes Billy into his arms. “You could never be Nancy, Billy.” He whispers, arms tight around Billy’s midriff. “She’s nothing compared to you. Nobody’s anything compared to you. Okay?”  
  
Billy nuzzles his face into Steve’s neck and basks in the wonderful glow of those words and wildly, actually, believes them. Something about Steve’s speech and his grip and his tone makes it so that Billy can’t help but believe him. There’s just too much honesty, too much fierce determination in his voice. Billy has seen Steve lie and this really ain’t it.   
  
“So. You really have never felt this? Ever?” Billy asks, because he needs to be sure before he reveals his whole entire heart again.  
  
“Never.” Steve states. “Not for anything. Even before tonight, I knew I’d live my whole life and not feel what I feel for you.”  
  
Billy’s eyes sting. “Me too. That’s it, for me. This is it, Steve.”  
  
“Thank fuck.” Steve breathes out.   
  
Billy laughs, but it’s wet and raw and choked. “Thank God.” He says, and really means it. Whoever is up there — Jesus, Buda, whoever’s pulling the strings and making shit go down, _thank you. Thank you so fucking much. I don’t know what I did good to deserve it but thank you._

“I just meant.” Steve begins. And he sounds unsure again. “I haven’t dated anyone. In a while.”

 ** _Oh_**. Oh.

That’s what he meant.

“Oh.” Billy huffs a short laugh, pulls back. “I thought you meant. You hadn’t had _sex_ in a while. And that’s why you were so … excited, if ya catch my drift.”

Steve laughs. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. Bit of a dick thing to say.”

Billy grins. “That’s what I thought.” He leans in for another kiss.

Steve pulls away.

Billy blinks. Waits.

“I just.” Steve says. “How long has it been since you dated?”

Billy searches Steve’s face. Something is going on. “Fucking ages. Why?”

Steve swallows. “Just. There was a rumour going on you took Racheal Phillips out on a date. And that you told Jessica White you guys were going steady. And then Amy –”

“Steve.” Billy cuts him off. “You really think I’d be here if I was seeing all those chicks?”

Steve closes his eyes, sighs, and then he thunks his head to Billy’s chest. “No. I’m sorry. I’ve just heard so many things –”

“Yeah. _Heard_.” Billy states. He tries not to be hurt.

“And I know you’ve never been with anyone like that, but I thought maybe it’s just cause you like to date around and have a couple girls going at the one time, like Tommy said you enjoy the chase, it’s kind of like a game or something–”

“Jesus, I went too fucking hard on proving my masculinity.” Billy states.

Steve laughs at that, leans into him, holds his waist and snakes an arm around him.

“Steve.” Billy states. “Which part of I’m madly in love with you, there’s nobody else for me, you’re the only one, didn’t you freaking understand?”

Steve looks up, places both hands on Billy’s chest for support. “All of it. Say it again.”

“Oh you want me to say it again?” Billy teases, licks the corners of his mouth. “Say it all again?”

“Yes.” Steve nods, eyes bright. “Again.”

“Again?” Billy tickles Steve’s sides. Steve shrieks and jerks back. “All of it again?” He digs his fingers in to make Steve shriek louder.

“No, don’t, stop –” Steve cries.

“Every single bit?” Billy shouts as Steve twists and turns, thrashes in his arms.

Steve manages to slip out and Billy chases him, catches the waistband of his undone jeans and spin him around, tickling him harder, moving his hands up and down Steve’s sides as Steve writhes and yells and laughs.

“Please, please!” Steve shouts, and then his foot catches and they’re tumbling to the floor in a heap of limbs.

Steve is laughing, and Billy is laughing, even though he’s a little winded and it comes out wheezy.

Steve runs a hand over the back of his head, down his spine, along his ribs, as if checking for injuries.

The tenderness of that act, the unasked for love in it, makes Billy still.

“Steve.” Billy whispers.

Steve blinks, stop instantly. “What?”

“Can I tell you something?”

Steve nods, waits, doesn’t speak.

“I’m gay.” He states.

Steve doesn’t do anything for a moment.

And then he reaches out slowly, places a hand on the side of Billy’s face.

“Thanks for telling me.” Steve murmurs.

Billy’s chest feels warm, light. “That’s why …” He murmurs. “I never did anything with girls. Past kissing.”

Steve eyes widen in realisation. “Oh. You … couldn’t.”

Billy nods, embarrassed.

“Is kissing different then?” Steve asks. “You can do that fine? It doesn’t really matter that you’re gay?”

Billy makes a face. “Kind of.”

Steve tilts his head. “Did you _want_ to kiss them?”

Billy shakes his head. “Nope. Never.”

“Only ever guys?” Steve asks.

Billy swallows. Nods.

“You’ve never enjoyed kissing girls?” Steve asks.

“Nope.” Billy repeats.

Steve looks at him, intense. And then he leans forward and presses his lips slowly over Billy’s.

He kisses Billy’s soft and deep, opens Billy’s mouth and runs his tongue along Billy’s teeth, inside his mouth, over his gums. Then Steve swirls the tip of his tongue with Billy’s and makes Billy feel as if he’s seeing _stars_ , making him honest to god fuzzy in the head as he loses sensation in his fingers, his toes, all his attention focused on his lips.

Steve pulls back slowly, lingeringly, lets Billy chase his mouth until he realises what’s happening and comes back to himself.

Steve’s eyes are dark, his face close.

“Holy shit.” Billy breathes. “Holy fucking _shit.”_

“I guess I’ll just have to make it up to you, then.” Steve murmurs.

Billy’s eyes are blown wide. “Is that what it’s meant to be like? Fuck, is that why the girls were so into it? And I just wanted it to end.” Billy feels a prickle of guilt. “Jesus, now I feel bad. I mean, a bit more than I already did.” He rushes to say. “I always felt bad that I didn’t like the girls. It’s just – _weird_ , in Cali, if you don’t date. And it would definitely get out if I didn’t kiss any of the girls I dated.”

“Billy.” Steve holds his face. “It’s alright. I would have done the same. But it sucks you had to do it in the first place.”

Billy gazes at Steve, at his mouth. “I’ve never – I haven’t ever. With a guy. I just. I was always too scared, and – I didn’t know it _felt_ like that, all over. I can’t even feel my hands.” Billy laughs, holds them up and looks at them.

“It doesn’t always feel like that.” Steve whispers as he presses his mouth to the corner of Billy’s, goes to the other side. “Only when it’s someone you’re insanely hot for. Like, would die to know how they felt in your arms hot for.”

Billy shivers. “Yeah?”

Steve nods, mouth trailing along Billy’s parted lips. “Yeah. Only when you’ve imagined how they would taste, how they would feel against you. How they would kiss and how they would touch you.”

Billy is trembling all over. “You – you felt that often?”

Steve chuckles, dry. “Fuck no. Never. Not until you.”

Billy’s trembles get worse. “Really?”

“Really.” Steve says. “Thought I was losing my damn mind. Nearly wept that night we both had fucking wet dreams and I could _see_ you – just wanted to grab you and throw you on the couch and rip your fucking clothes off.”

Billy shudders hard, just from the mental image. “Yeah? Did you –” Billy swallows. “Did you love me then, or did you just have the hots for me?”

Steve stares. “Loved you. Loved you since we made macaroni together the first time.”

Billy stares. “Since then? That _whole_ _time?_ This whole time you’ve loved me?”

Steve nods, slowly.

“Fuck, Steve, me too.” Billy says. “We could’ve –”

“What did you dream about?” Steve asks. “That night?”

“You, of course.” Billy breathes. “Fucking always you.”

“Fucking me?” Steve whispers.

All the blood disappears from Billy’s head and goes straight to his cock.

“What?” He rasps.

“Was it fucking me?” Steve asks, eyes dark, eyelids low.

Billy can barely make a sentence. He can barely make a _sound_.

“Because if it was.” Steve pushes Billy back a bit, lowers him until he’s lying on the floor. “You’ll need to come again.”

Billy’s heart is a jack-rabbit in his chest. “Steve –” He croaks.

Steve moves so that he’s lying between Billy’s spread legs, and he pushes Billy’s shirt up and kisses his abdomen.

Billy gives a sharp little inhale at the sensation.

“Always wanted to do this.” Steve whispers against Billy’s skin, raising goose-bumps and making it _real_ difficult for Billy to flex his abs. “Imagined doing it at that party when we met. Licking the beer off your stomach, all the way down.”

Billy groans, long and low. “I wish you had. Fuck, _fuck_ , I wish you had. I was so gone on you. Thought you were the coolest fucking shit. Wanted to get you to look at me.”

Steve looks up at Billy from below his lashes, his hands holding Billy’s both hips, his mouth hovering over Billy’s stomach.

Billy _moans_. He’s never even _heard_ most of the sounds coming out his mouth.

“Look at where I am now.” Steve murmurs. “About to suck your dick.”

Billy pulsates all over. He has to ball his hands into tight fists and squeeze his eyes shut. He’s obviously _heard_ how fucking awesome blowjobs are and he’s not about to ruin this by coming too fast.

Steve starts on his waistband all slow, pulls some of it back with his teeth until he yanks the rest down with his hands, impatient and quick.

Billy’s cock bobs free, hard and upright and eager. He’d be absolutely _mortified_ if not for the way Steve takes a hold of him and squeezes, the way he stares with dark eyes.

Billy whines, bucks into Steve’s hand. His cheeks burn with heat at how excited he looks, how _inexperienced_ , because maybe Steve’s done all this before and Billy’s the one who’s totally new to it, Billy’s the one who looks like a blushing virgin.

Until Steve breathes, “Never done this before. Wanted to, though.” He lowers his head and runs his mouth along Billy’s shaft, the length of it. “Wanted to everytime I looked at you.”

“Yeah?” Billy feels his legs start to tremble, his thighs shake as he presses them to the floor. He’s not going to come. He’s _not_.

“You’re so fucking hot, Billy.” Steve says and starts to stroke him, breath just ghosting over the tip. “It’s not fair. Nobody should get to look like you.”

Billy feels the heat that’s been building in his gut travel all the way to his head, feels his brain go fuzzy and start to swirl, start to _swim_ , because this is _Steve_ saying it like it’s facts: like it’s the blatant truth.

Billy has been called good-looking enough to know it at this point.

When Billy was younger he relished that fact: basked in the compliments and the flirting. Even if he wasn't attracted to the people that flirted with him, it was still _fun_.

But it’s a tool that Billy weaponizes now. It's something he uses to get his own way, to get something he wants. In Cali, it was heterosexuality. And in Hawkins, it was popularity. Anywhere else, it’s a discount, a favour, a bump up in his grade, an extra book at the library.

Billy likes the way he looks and he likes the way he dresses and he’s got the douchebag charm down to a capital D. He knows how to act and what to say and how to run his tongue along his bottom lip.

But this, here, _now_ , Billy doesn’t know what to do. What to say. How to _feel_.

He’d fantasised that Steve felt the same way as him. Of course he did. As soon as Robin made that _‘supermodel’_ comment, hope came bursting in and set up camp.

Because straight dudes don’t say that shit. They say _yeah he’s alright-looking,_ they say _sure, I can see why the chicks dig it._

They don’t use fully-blown _adjectives_. And Billy’s never, ever heard a straight guy call another guy a ‘supermodel’.

When Billy first got to Hawkins, he was desperate to make Steve think he was attractive. Desperate to make Steve consider him hot, in an objective sense, for a guy. Spent hours in front of the mirror every morning to make sure that if Steve Harrington even so much as passed eyes over Billy, it would be a Billy that even _Billy_ can admit is fucking smoking.

Of course, when they became friends everything changed. Because Billy actually fell in love. He stopped hoping that Steve secretly thought he was cool, suave, popular. He started hoping for something else entirely.

And now Steve’s got Billy wrapped in a fist and he’s telling Billy that he’s so hot it’s _unfair_.

“Perfect face, perfect body, perfect cock.” Steve murmurs, oblivious to Billy as he swipes the pad of his thumb over Billy’s leaking head, rubs into the slit. “Seriously.”

Billy groans, arches up off the floor, spine curved. Fuck, his eyes are _stinging_ from the pleasure of that one move. It feels as if every muscle in Billy’s body is pulling in tight, feels as if his heartbeat is down in his _balls_.

“Steve –” Billy gasps.

“Sorry, I should actually do this instead of talking.” Steve laughs, and then he licks Billy’s tip a little: makes Billy _spasm_. “I just got carried away. I mean, look at you. It’s unholy. You’re fucking perfect, everywhere. Look at this little v.” Steve chuckles, smoothes his hands down Billy’s hipbones, where the muscles of his stomach make that letter. “Look how pretty that is. Look at these little blonde hairs.” He skims fingertips along the tops of Billy’s exposed thighs. “There’s not one part of you that isn’t fucking gorgeous.”

Billy twists his head to the side on the floor, breathes through his nostrils. “You should know.” He rasps. “It’s – it’s for you. It’s all for you, Steve.”

Steve stills. “What do you mean?”

Billy shuts his eyes, face turned away. “You’re the only person I ever wanted … to look at me like that.” He gets out. “I always … I’ve only ever wanted to look good for you.”

There’s a beat, a pause.

And then Steve takes Billy inside his mouth.

Warm, wet heat engulfs Billy. He cries out, hips jerking up as he’s submerged in the most heavenly sensation he’s ever felt, the most euphoric pleasure Billy even knew _existed_.

Steve’s tongue plays with his head, flicks against the tip before he takes Billy further, slides Billy’s cock along his smooth gums and down. Billy’s stomach is _quaking_ as he flexes every single muscle he has to make it last, to hold out, until Billy feels himself hit the back of Steve’s throat and Steve contracts around him.

Billy literally cannot hold it in, comes with a violent shake and a gasped, pained noise.

It feels as if it goes on forever, endless wave after wave as Steve swallows him, holds Billy in his mouth, keep him there until the last dregs of after-shocks are all that Billy is twitching from.

“Steve.” Billy whispers, reaches down to run hands through Steve’s hair, stroke the sides of his face.

Steve lifts up, crawls along the front of Billy’s body and lays on top of him. “Is that true?” He asks.

Billy wipes the side of his mouth, cups his face. “Huh?” He asks. His brain has gone blank. Void. Empty.

“You only look good for me?” Steve asks. His eyes are bright, alive. “The shirts, the cologne, the _denim_. That’s all for me?”

Billy grins. He can’t feel nervous anymore. Not with the way Steve is looking at him. “Fucking took you long enough. Literally couldn’t care less what anyone in Hawkins thought of me ‘till I saw your goddamn face.”

Steve grins right back. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Billy agrees. “Then I had to look like the best person in the room. Had to be the loudest thing in the fucking vicinity so I might catch your attention.”

“You did.” Steve’s eyes shine. “All the time.”

Billy grins with teeth this time, happy and pleased. “Good.”

Steve kisses his teeth, and then jerks back. “Oh. Sorry.”

Billy frowns. “Huh?”

“I don’t know if you –” Steve waves to his mouth, makes a face.

Billy suddenly gets what he means. And then he drags Steve in and kisses him hard.

Steve melts against him, tastes a little salty and Billy guesses that’s _his_ taste on Steve’s tongue, and wow, Christ, would you look at that, he’s growing hard again.

Steve pulls back with a laugh, clearly feeling Billy harden on his leg. “You are _so_ full of surprises.”

“I just can’t believe I can taste myself in your mouth.” Billy murmurs, and fuck even saying it aloud is getting Billy hot.

“Billy.” Steve murmurs, his voice going low. “Come upstairs.”   
  
Billy feels Steve’s voice like a shudder down his nape. “Yeah?” He breathes.  
  
Steve looks Billy in the eye. “Yeah.” He whispers, bends to nuzzle into Billy’s neck. “Let me take care of you. I wanna take care of you.” He kisses the side of Billy’s throat, gentle and soft. “I wanna get you naked. I wanna be with you.”  
  
“Me too.” Billy breathes out, tilts his head back.

Steve nips at the skin of his neck. Billy shudders, his body flooding with a million and one new sensations.

Steve travels up to his ear, sucks on his lobe. Billy moans, so unused to the feeling, and Steve does it again.

“Steve, _Steve_ –” Billy tries, desperate. “Let’s go. _Now_. Cause otherwise we’ll never get off his floor.”

Steve jumps up, pulls Billy with him. “Which bed you want to use?” Steve takes hold of Billy’s hand and all but drags him out the room. “There’s a few double bedrooms, and one of them is real comfy –”

Billy spins Steve around, pushes him against the hallway. “Yours.” He says. Presses his forehead to Steve’s. “Please.”

Steve smiles, soft and small. “Sure.”

They thunder up the stairs and Billy’s stomach is fluttering a mile a minute because he’s done this a million times, and he’s been in Steve’s room a million times, but this time it’s finally for the reason he’s always wanted.

They reach Steve’s bedroom door in a matter of seconds. Steve yanks Billy inside, throws the door shut and starts on Billy’s shirt instantly.

Billy returns the gesture without hesitation, starts on Steve’s jeans and wrenches them down until Steve is laughing, tripping over the ankles, and he shakes them off until he’s stood in his briefs and a t-shirt that Billy quickly rips up and off.

“Billy!” Steve shouts, now in just his underwear and socks. “That’s not fair! Let me –” He tugs Billy’s shirt off, pulls at Billy’s Levi’s, his hands grappling uselessly.

Billy ends up helping until they’re both in the same situation, both in just their briefs. Billy’s shaking so hard with excitement he’s fucking _unsteady_ on his own feet.

“Come on.” Billy whispers, takes Steve’s hand and guides him to the bed in the dark. He lies down and pulls Steve in with him, presses himself along the length of Steve.

“Hey.” Steve murmurs when they’re settled in bed. He pushes Billy’s hair away and strokes his face.

“Hi.” Billy beams. “You good?”

“ _So_ good.” Steve says. “You?”

Billy only nods and dives in for a kiss, too desperate to wait.

They kiss for so long that Billy’s mouth feels numb, bruised, sore. His jaw aches and his lips are tired but he can’t stop. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to stop. Now that he knows what kissing is actually meant to be like, Billy can’t have enough. Now that he knows it’s meant to be this light-headed, dizzying experience that leaves you breathless and floating. That makes you feel wholly, totally connected to the other person.

It’s only when Steve starts to rock against him gently, starts to huff out gentle groans, that Billy can actually tear his focus off Steve’s mouth.

They’re lying on their sides facing each other, and Steve’s hands have been everywhere during this kiss – in Billy’s hair, on his throat, running down his back, along his legs, up his sides.

But when he rocks against Billy he grips Billy’s hip, pushes their groins together.

Billy cuts their kiss off with a gasp, presses his foreheads to Steve and looks down. The outlines of their cocks is clearly visible, straining against the thin material of their briefs, and Billy curses under his breath when he sees it.

“Billy –” Steve gasps, frantic. “I can’t – I won’t last –”

Billy realises with a start how much harder Steve is than Billy: his breath is coming out in harsh puffs, small tremors passing throughout his whole body, hips bucking on instinct.

It’s then that Billy remembers he’s managed to come three times since they made it upstairs, and Steve has come … _once_.

Guilt slams into Billy. “Fuck, Steve I’m sorry, let me –” He reaches down and squeezes Steve in the palm of his hand.

Steve moans, heady and sweet, and then he sucks in a sharp breath and starts yanking Billy’s briefs down.

“Steve, what –” Billy yelps, startled.

“Shh, trust me.” Steve breathes, pulls Billy’s briefs all the way down and off his feet.

Billy suddenly feels a lot more naked, a lot more _exposed_ , than he did before. He tilts his hips down onto the bed and tries to hide away, until Steve takes his own off and then he’s lying there naked.

Now that’s not exactly something Billy can resist.

He’s on Steve in a second, pulling him in and pressing their skin together. Steve is hot and sweaty and blissful against Billy, and Billy can barely fucking _think._

Then Steve reaches down and wraps both their dicks in his hand.

Billy sobs, a dry noise, as Steve strokes them both in tandem, as he feels Steve’s cock pressed up against his, throbbing and hard.

Steve suddenly throws himself backwards and away.

Billy blinks sweat out his eyes. “Steve –”

Steve jumps off the bed and runs to his drawers, rummaging around before he finds something and produces it with a noise of triumph.

Lotion. _Ah_.

Billy feels a thrill go up his spine.

He rushes back and presses himself all the way against Billy, opens the lotion and squirts some clear stuff onto his hand.

“Ever used this?” He asks.

Billy stares. “Lotion? Sure.”

“No.” Steve says. “ _Lube_. Lubricant. It’s made for stuff like this.”

Billy’s cheeks heat. “No. How am I meant to buy something like that?”

“With a lot of bravery.” Steve grins. “Worth it, trust me. I’ve used basically this whole bottle thinking about you.”

Billy’s head erupts into flames. “Yeah?” He pulls Steve closer, runs hands up his bare sides.

Steve nods, eyes bright. “Yeah. Thought about it a lot. Doing this.” He reaches down with his wet hand and slicks up Billy’s cock.

Billy whines at the sensation, bucks into Steve.

“And this.” Steve then pushes his dick against Billy’s and takes them both in hand, stroking slow. The lube is doing wonders and the friction has increased tenfold, _twentyfold_ , the smooth wet slide of them together filling the room with noise.

Billy’s eyes sting with sudden and unexpected force, and he squeezes them together and clenches his jaw.

“Thought about this literally every single way.” Steve pants as he moves. “Fucking you. You fucking me. Blowing each other. Rimming each other. Sixty-nine. Fucking _everything_ , Billy.”

Billy feels delirious from what Steve’s saying, reaches down and holds Steve’s hips to keep the momentum going. He gives up after a short second and moves his hands to Steve’s ass, grips two fistfuls in each hand and rocks into him.

Steve moans, and then he drops their cocks as he reaches for Billy’s ass too, as he uses both hands to grab and squeeze. It feels so good and it only makes Billy thrust harder, their cocks bouncing every which way, sliding into their crevices of their hips and their stomachs and against each other.

The tears are escaping, there’s nothing Billy can do, and he bites his lip and lets them stream over his cheeks, his jaw. He feels Steve’s mouth on his face, smoothing his lips over Billy’s skin, tasting his tears, and it only creates a fresh onslaught. The pleasure is building to a crest and all Billy can do is hang on, trembling all over, feeling as if he could fly apart.

“Billy, I won’t –” Steve gasps.

“Please.” Billy’s voice is wrecked. “I want you – I need you.”

Steve obeys almost instantly: shoots his load between them, spattering against Billy’s chest, arms, stomach. Billy follows seconds after as if in response to that. They moan into each other’s mouths, shake in each other’s arms, until Steve bites down on Billy’s shoulder and Billy feels his whole body spasm with a jolt. He cries out and feel his dick spurt the last dregs it can manage, creating a total mess between them.

Their hips move slowly with residual adrenaline, and Billy’s heartbeat is a thundering drum against his chest.

“That was.” Steve pants. “The best. Ever. Fuck – _Billy_.” Steve pulls Billy’s face up with his hands and kisses him hard.

“The best?” Billy grins when Steve releases him.

“ _Hell_ _yes_.” Steve states. “I can’t even – _Jesus_.” He reaches up to cup Billy’s face, wipe away some of the wetness.

Billy feels his cheeks heat. He turns away, embarrassed.

“Good?” Steve murmurs.

“Amazing.” Billy whispers, clogged. “This –” He waves to his face. “I mean. I don’t have anything to compare to, but … this honestly never happens.”

“Billy.” Steve states, voice hard. “ _I_ don’t have anything to compare to.”

Billy meets Steve gaze.

“Sex is awkward, and weird, and only a little better towards the end.” Steve states, his eyes serious. “Until it’s done and then it’s awkward again. I stopped hooking up after Nancy because I realised maybe when you actually like the person, it’s a loss less awkward and uncomfortable.”

Billy grimaces, because he doesn’t want to imagine anything happening in that sentence.

“Sorry.” Steve whispers with a smile. “This gets better, by the way. Cause I never knew it could be like that.”

Billy smiles as well. “Like what?” He asks, just to hear it.

“Like fucking _insane_.” Steve states. “I want you, like, a million times more now.”

Billy laughs and wraps Steve up in his arms, though he quietly agrees which is kind of terrifying.

Steve lays his head on Billy’s chest, content, and they breathe together. They seem to have wordlessly decided to take a break for now, which Billy is eternally grateful for because he needs a fucking _minute_ , and he lies there and skims his fingertips up and down Steve’s bare back.

“Mmm.” Steve hums, eyes closed. “Need to get up and clean.”

Billy sighs, resigned, and then starts to pull away.

“Not _now_.” Steve says, appalled, as he yanks Billy back down.

Billy laughs again, falls back easily. “We’ll end up falling asleep.”

“Mmm.” Steve hums louder.

Billy chuckles, takes Steve back into his arms and presses his nose into Steve’s hair.

His eyes grow heavy within seconds, the call of sleep tempting him, lulling him. He doesn’t feel like it fighting anymore. He doesn’t feel like fighting it ever again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've increased the chapter count once again because of a few reasons, 1) my laptop broke and my pen drive had issues and I thought I had lost everything, so I'm uploading what I have of the rest of this story so as not to feel that way again, though I've now backed everything up! 2) this is now 5K and it's only halfway what I want the last chapter to be, and I really can't abide massive chapters because they are so hard to get out 3) it’s been exactly a month since I updated 4) its my story so i get to decide! eheh
> 
> Someone mentioned this story is OOC soft Billy, and boy you ain't seen nothing yet ;))

Billy wakes with slow, sleepy reluctance. Everything is warm and comfortable. He doesn’t want to wake up. His eyes are barely able to crack open: eyelids peeling apart with every bit of strength he has.

The whole room is dark. Billy can’t see for _shit_ , screws his eyes up real hard and still can’t make anything out. The fuck. Where is he? Is it night?

There’s a weight on his back like a million blankets, and Billy turns his head and sees the vague outline of a shoulder –

It hits him.

 _Steve_.

Billy can’t believe he was so stupid. Can’t believe he forgot he _got together_ with Steve. That Billy and Steve are _together_ now. That Steve told Billy he freaking fucking loves him and they had sex like twenty eight times, Christ.

His heart soars in his chest as he watches Steve sleep.

Steve’s got his face mushed into the pillow, arms underneath, one leg tangled in Billy’s. The bed is most definitely too small for them both at this point, but it’s forcing their sides to remain pressed and Billy can’t care. Doesn’t care. Could not care about anything right now.

Billy waits for his eyes to adjust as he listens to Steve’s soft breathing: a long moment in, a short sound out. The noise calms Billy, warms him from the inside. It makes him want to sleep on, to join Steve wherever he is.

When Billy can make out things a bit more than a fuzzy image, the first thing that comes into focus is Steve’s profile.

His bare back, freckled shoulders, tousled hair. The sheets are pooled around both their middles and it reveals Steve’s smooth skin shadowed by the night. His hair is flopped everywhere. One strand lies across his eye.

Billy reaches up and slides his fingers through it, pushes some of it away from Steve’s face.

Steve rouses, a little furrow appearing between both his brows. His eyes flutter open, and then they settle on Billy.

Billy smiles. Steve’s gaze is blank, uncomprehending. Billy can physically _see_ the cogs click into place.

Then Steve’s eyes brighten, widen, and then he beams.

“Hi.” Steve breathes.

Billy chuckles. “I forgot as well. Did you go through the same thing?”

Steve nods with a laugh. “I was like – am I dreaming?”

Billy snorts, even though that goddamn cheesy line still makes his cheeks bleeds red. “Sure, sure.” He huffs.

“I’m serious.” Steve says, earnest. “I was just dreaming about you. I thought I still was.”

Billy swallows, stares into Steve’s eyes.

Steve stares back.

Billy rolls over and on top of Steve, brackets his head with both his hands. He leans down and kisses Steve’s mouth softly.

Steve tilts up into it, wanting to deepen the moment, to further it, but Billy pulls back with a smile on his face.

It feels nice being pressed together with no urgency, no desperation. Just the warmth of their sleep-smooth skin and the closeness of being this close. He feels Steve’s prickly leg hair, his sharp hipbones, his solid chest, his squishy stomach. He can feel every part of Steve, and Steve’s arms come up to wrap about Billy’s back, hold him in place. Feeling every part of him too.

Billy feels his face making an expression he’s never made. Some massively creepy grin, no doubt. “I’m glad I woke up.” He murmurs.

Steve’s eyes crease all over when he smiles. Billy’s never seen that happen, literally ever. “Me too. When you leaving?”

Billy rests his head on Steve’s shoulder. “Never.” He mouths, but that’s just a bit too cheesy. Bit too much. Reel in it just a bit, Hargrove.

“Huh?” Steve turns, grinning. “Never?”

Billy gapes. “Wh – I _mouthed_ that. As a freaking _joke_.”

Steve doesn’t quit grinning, like he sees right through Billy and doesn’t believe him for a second. “Yeah, yeah.”

Billy’s head is growing hot. “Whatever, Harrington.” He grumbles. But his chest is tight with vulnerability.

“Billy.” Steve runs a hand along his face, a little scratchy from morning stubble. He pulls Billy’s face up, forces him to meet Steve’s gaze. “You don’t have to do that anymore.”

Billy looks at Steve.

“Okay?” Steve says. “You don’t have to pretend like this means nothing. If it was up to me, you’d never have to leave.”

Billy swallows around some emotion he can’t name. He finds he can’t hold Steve’s gaze; feels like it’s consuming a part of him.

“I … don’t wanna go.” He finally admits, rough.

“I know.” Steve whispers.

“How long till 6?” Billy rests his head back down.

Steve reaches over to check the clock. “Half an hour.”

That’s a lot less time than Billy thought he had. Freaking Hawkins and it’s freakishly dark nights.

“Okay.” Billy murmurs. “Can we … do this? Until then?”

Billy re-settles his head back into the crook of Steve’s shoulder and doesn’t move, hoping that ‘this’ is conveyed in everything he’s doing – lying here, together. Nothing more.

“Yeah.” Steve says. And they do.

Billy watches for the sunrise with open eyes as he feels Steve slip back into sleep. When light comes, Billy waits for it spill across onto the bed and only then does he start to pull away.

Steve is still asleep. Billy doesn’t wake him. He just removes himself from Steve’s arms slowly, quietly.

Once he’s standing he collects his clothes, stranded across various parts of the room, and creeps back over to the bed to press a kiss to Steve’s forehead.

He dresses in the bathroom, tries to reassemble his hair into something that doesn’t look like it was dragged through a hedge, and makes his way home.

*

Billy does his chores with half a brain, messes up Neil’s lunch and has to start all over again. He gets absolutely _fuck all_ exercise done, because his heart’s already jittery and fast enough without adding basketball practise and weight lifting into the mix.

Billy almost feels as if he’s going clinically insane, because every time he thinks he’s not thinking about Steve, he’s thinking about Steve.

At first, Billy beats himself up about not leaving a note. Because if it were him and he woke up without Steve, he’d have appreciated a note.

Otherwise it feels like being left.

Billy rehearses the explanation in his mind about a hundred times, rephrases it a million ways until he has to admit it’s giving him a sore head. The migraine rests just behind his eyes, floats in wait.

He’ll see Steve at his break. It’ll be fine.

Billy forces himself to focus on the task at hand, but then Steve pops into his head because _what is he doing now? Is he awake? Did he wake up after I left or did he sleep on for a little bit?_

Billy blinks hard, tells himself to get a grip. _You can go at least a minute without thinking about him._

And then laughter bubbles up in his chest because he’s buttering some bread and then Steve’s there, buttering Billy’s toast in the morning and he _loved_ Billy at that point so what even was that, a come on? An attempt at flirting? And then Billy’s smile slides away because maybe Steve did it because he loved him, and _I figured you must miss breakfast in the morning._

He wanted Billy to eat. That’s it. That's all. Nothing else to it. Billy suddenly feels fingers at the back of his head, Steve's quick-fire reaction when they both fell.

He's never experienced what it means for somebody to do something out of pure love.

Is that why he wanted Billy to stay over in the first place? To make sure he got enough sleep? Why he wanted Billy to be a part of the gang, so he could see him more? So the people in his life could be a part of Billy’s, so he'd have real people to rely on? Why he looked after Billy and made him food and bought him expensive tomatoes?

Billy’s chest is suffusing with warmth and bleeding all the way down into his chest, his stomach.

He thinks about Steve feeling the exact same as him this whole time. How it’s been just as hard for Steve as it has been for Billy. What was he feeling when Billy lifted him in the air, called Billy all those pet-names, stuck those photos of Billy on his wall?

Was it a sharp ache? Or was a quieter pain, always constant? Did he ever think of kissing Billy in the locker-room when Billy was right there, half-naked, just out of reach? He must have. He must have wanted to kiss Billy. Fuck, he’s been feeling the exact _same_ all this time. They’ve wanted each other for almost the same length of time. Billy feels like he could burst, like he could dance around the room. Like he could run into Neil’s room and give him a _hug_.

Billy presses his hands to his face and tries to squish the smile off his face. He’s somehow ten times more obsessed with Steve Harrington than he was before. Which, the fuck, Billy did not sign up for this.

Eventually it turns time to get ready for work. Billy hops into the shower before the rest of the house is up. He washes the sticky dried mess off his stomach and tries not to get hot and bothered from the thought, concentrates on getting as clean as he possibly can.

He washes his hair twice. He wants it fucking _shining_.

He dresses in his lifeguard attire: loose tank-top, snug pair of shorts, sunglasses and a whistle around his neck.

Usually Billy takes the shirt off halfway through the day, too hot and sweaty and also feeling too many disappointed faces watching him over their magazines.

Billy might be gay, but he’s not _cruel_. If someone came to the shitty Hawkins community pool to see Billy Hargrove shirtless, then a shirtless Billy Hargrove they will get.

He cooks everyone eggs for breakfast. Prepares the coffee. Sets the toast out.

“What’s all this?” Susan slows as she walks in.

“Breakfast.” Billy states.

Susan looks shocked. And then she smiles at him, timid and unsure, something she hasn’t tried in a while. She takes some eggs onto her plate.

Neil comes in with a wordless look. He sits in his armchair.

Billy brings him his coffee and his newspaper, sets a plate of fried eggs down.

Neil barely glances up, takes the paper and flips it open.

Billy is very, _very_ content for it to stay that way. Preferably for the rest of his life.

Max is late, as usual. She rocks up with bedhead and squinty eyes, clearly just woken up. She stops in the doorway too. “What’s all this?”

“Your favourite.” Billy grins.

Max comes over, stares with wide eyes at the frying pan. “You made them how I like it.”

He did. Runny and soft.

Max turns her gaze on him. She studies his face.

Billy beams down at her.

Max’s mouth falls open.

“You and _Steve?”_ She shouts, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Billy nearly chokes on his own tongue. “ _Max_ –” He hisses, voice low.

“I told you.” Max says, smug, clearly having sussed him out. “I’m good at reading people.”

Billy feels himself run hot and cold. _Fuckfuckfuck_. He eyes Susan and Neil to see if they’ve noticed anything, if they’re frowning, looking over.

“Please.” Max rolls her eyes when Billy looks back at her, but she lowers her voice between them. “They’ve not even noticed that you’re suddenly all happy after moping about for three days. They’re not gonna be able to suss out what I mean.”

Billy, relaxing, suddenly realises that.

“But you did.” He states. “Notice, that is. And sussed it out.”

“Yeah.” Max shrugs, no biggie. “That’s cause you’re my brother.”

Billy freezes up.

Max moves around him, fills a plate up and grabs some toast on her way, totally blasé.

But Billy can see the way she’s avoiding his eyes, the way her shoulders are a little tight.

He ruffles her hair as she walks out.

Max makes a noise and scrambles to flatten it, but Billy just laughs as she flips him off.

Billy catches Susan watching them with a smile.

She meets his gaze.

Billy tries to smile back, but he can’t. It just won’t happen.

He nods instead. It’s a short tip of his head, an acknowledgement. It’s all he can offer. For now, at least.

Still, as soon as Billy glances away, he lasts all of three seconds before he’s snickering again.

*

When Billy gets to work, his good mood hasn’t diminished one bit. He almost freaking _skips_ , because it’s five minutes away and fuck wasting petrol on that.

He doesn’t skip though. He walks. He draws the line there.

The weather’s cooling down as they enter into the last week of the summer, the sun fading a little bit each day. Billy doesn’t mind what so ever – can finally enjoy being outside all day without feeling the oncoming sunstroke five minutes into the job.

So it’s nice today in Hawkins – it’s beautiful actually. The trees are green, the air is sweet, the streets glow in the hazy mid-morning light. Billy feels like he can _taste_ the freshness of everything, like he’s just finally woken up after the best sleep of his whole life, after a whole life of never having slept at all.

He breezes into work like he’s all that, beams at the ladies lounging around on the sunbeds and throws a couple winks in there, just to get a laugh (and to laugh at the squeals, too).

He saunters into the breakroom.

“Jesus, finally.” Heather grumbles from her position on the sofa, not looking up. “Thought you’d never come in. I’ve been waiting to take my break for like ten minutes.”

Billy laughs. “But … you still took it?”

Heather whips around, gives him an assessing once-over. “I mean. If someone drowns it’s not my problem. I’m legally not allowed to work. It’s child labour if I do.”

Billy laughs, loud and bright.

“Okay.” Heather stands up, takes his face in his hands and twists it around. She stares into his eyes. “Who are you and what have you done to Billy Hargrove?”

Billy laughs again. “What?”

“Three days of the worst mood I’ve ever seen you in and now this?” Heather says, incredulous.

Billy wants to say it, has to say it, _needs_ to say it: it’s bursting out of him, clamouring up his throat. “I … I’m seeing someone.” He manages.

“Steve, right?” Heather states.

“Wh –” Billy stutters.

“Billy, please.” Heather says. “You’d have to be blind not to see it.”

Billy’s whole head is hot, and he can’t exactly deny it in any believable way after this. So he coughs, looks at the floor. “What – what gave it away?”

“Besides the simple fact of how you two look at each other?” Heather asks. “Well, you’ve been moping all week and you haven’t mentioned Steve once. What happened? Lover’s spat? You guys break up and make up?”

Billy gapes harder, if that were possible. “ _What?_ Me and Steve – we _got_ together last night! We just started dating yesterday!”

It’s Heather’s turn to gape. “You guys _just_ got together? I thought you were with Steve this whole time!”

Billy can only gape, incredulous.

“I just figured you couldn’t show it and you were maybe waiting to see if I was cool with it!” Heather shouts. “With you being gay and all! Not – it took you guys _that long?”_

Billy starts to laugh, realising that it’s not just Steve and Billy that think it was ridiculous.

It’s everyone else too.

“Robin says every second word out of Steve’s mouth is your name! That he practically vibrates whenever he overhears girls talk about how hot you are!” Heather continues. “That’s dating behaviour if I ever did see it. That’s some couple shit. You guys just got together _? Yesterday?”_

Billy grins, tilts his head. “How do you know Robin?”

Heather shrugs. “We talk. She’s cool.”

“She is.” Billy agrees with a smile.

Heather crosses her arms. “Are you gonna work today? Or are we just gonna stand here and talk about how much of an idiot you and Steve are.”

“Hey.” Billy holds his hands up, walks backwards out the breakroom. “I was not the idiot in our scenario.”

Heather gives him a flat look. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Billy leaves with a laugh.

The day passes smoothly, quietly. Not much goes on, other than the fact that Billy feels as if the bottom part of his lungs have opened up. As if he’s able to feel every breath ten times better than he could before. He sits on his lifeguard chair and tries to contain his grin so he doesn’t scare the kids and what.

It’s a battle Billy is not used to losing, put it this way.

Billy can’t remember if Steve is working today. Should have asked before he left. Should have woke Steve up. Should have kissed him goodbye.

It reaches his break and Billy is just climbing down, on the last step, before he feels a soft touch to his side and whips around.

Steve is stood there, in his Scoops Ahoy uniform, looking fresh as all fuck. Billy beams and leans forward to kiss before he remembers, before he _realises_ , that shit’s still not allowed.

“Hey.” Billy breathes instead, pretends to brush something off Steve’s shoulder for the excuse to touch him. “What’s up? Is it your break too? We could catch –”

“Billy.” Steve states. His mouth is downturned and stiff, expression tight the way it gets when he’s frustrated. “Bad news.”

Billy’s stomach swoops low. “Huh?”

“Yeah. Can you come over here?” Steve nods to the locker-room.

Billy’s heart is in his throat. “Uh. Sure.”

Steve stalks over all quick so Billy tries to match his pace, until they’re in the locker-room which is pretty empty because of the time of day.

Steve glances around to make sure nobody’s here.

Billy’s gut is churning.

Until Steve walks Billy up against a locker. “God, you’re so hot.” He says before kissing Billy hard.

Billy melts against Steve’s mouth, his hands coming up to fist in Steve’s stupid Scoops uniform, to run down to those insufferable shorts and squeeze Steve’s ass.

Steve gasps, rips away from Billy’s mouth. “Ah. No. Can’t.”

Billy is still a little hazy from the kiss. “Mm?” He hums, before he hears what Steve just said. “We can go back to yours? I have half an hour.” He smiles, nuzzles Steve’s throat.

 _“Fuck.”_ Steve says, and then groans and thunks his head into the locker.

“What?” Billy lifts Steve's face with gentle hands.

“My parents are home.” Steve states, as if he’s giving the news of their death. “They’re back for the foreseeable future. Something about a project at my dad’s company in Hawkins and a big opportunity or some shit.”

Billy blinks. “Oh.”

That’s it?

Is that seriously it?

Steve frowns at him. “Are you not bummed? I was really looking forward to having you all to myself for a week before school started back. Now I don’t even get that.”

Billy feels himself grin. “I mean, that’s real fucking cute, but I thought it was something a little worse.”

Steve looks confused.

“The way you barged on up, saying _bad news Billy_ , dragging me in here.” Billy explains. “I mean we just got together yesterday. I thought …”

Steve’s eyes widen a fraction, and then he cringes. “Sorry. Was I a bit too fatalistic?”

“Just a tad.” Billy murmurs. “But good word.” He kisses Steve’s eyebrow.

Steve groans. “Even _this_.” He waves a hand between them both. “I just wanted to enjoy this for a little while, back at my place. Now I’ll have to pretend we’re not together at work, at school, _and_ at home.”

Something in the way Steve puts that makes Billy finally realise the gravity of the situation.

They won’t have any of their familiar spaces to be together. To be free and unadulterated. The way they watched TV and made dinner and ate it through laughter, sat by the pool with their feet dipped in. They’ve _finally_ started dating and now all those things are gone, when they never got a chance to fully appreciate them in the first place.

Now they don’t really have any room to actually date, other than just stolen moments here and there.

Now they don’t even get to be a couple in any capacity.

“Oh.” Billy says, but more gutted than before. “I get it.”

Steve runs his hands up Billy’s sides, up and down like he’s trying to get the heat back into Billy. And Billy is admittedly chilly: he's wearing a tank top. That wordless comfort is something Billy wants everyone to see Steve do. Is something he wants to parade around, how Steve cares for him, loves him, _only_ him. How King Steve is numb to everyone but him.

Fuck, Billy wants everyone to see that Steve is _his_.

Not just that Steve is off limits, taken, in a relationship – but that _Billy_ caught him. That Billy was the one to gain Steve’s attraction, his affection. It was only Billy and nobody else. Nobody else could have dreamed of doing that.

But instead they’ll just be walking around, going on as normal, acting like they’re still ripe for the picking while both of them know that in every single way, other than legally, they belong to one another.

“This sucks.” Steve whispers, as if reading his thoughts.

Billy swallows. “It. It’ll be hard, at first. It’ll just take time to get used to. But once we’re used to it –”

“I don’t want to have to get used to it!” Steve’s head lifts, brows pulled together. “Why does everyone else get to be all over each other but us? Why can everyone else show each other off and be glued to the hip but we can’t?”

Billy swallows. “I don’t know.” He murmurs, soft.

Steve deflates. “I’m sorry.” He sighs. “I’m not angry at you.”

“I know.” Billy says. And he does. But he’s not angry anyway. At least not about this. He is angry at a lot of things, but not this.

He feels Steve’s anger as his own, and he feels angry for Steve, but Billy isn’t angry. He’s too familiar with that emotion, too comfortable inside it, too moulded to its shape, that now Billy has tasted half a day without it he’s never going back. He doesn't want it back for anything.

“As I said.” Billy begins. “It’ll take time. We’ll get through it. This.” He clears his throat. “This is worth it. For me.”

Steve meets his eyes with a smile, warmth back in his expression. “Yeah.” He nudges Billy’s nose with his, makes him forget about everything that was spoken, everything but the fact that this can happen now. “I agree.”

*

The week of Steve’s parents living in what Billy has unofficially termed _Steve’s_ _house_ is slightly surreal.

They’re different in person. More – three-dimensional, which sounds ridiculous of course, but they’re real in a way that the photographs hadn’t shown. That it hadn’t seemed they could be.

Not that Billy figured they were cardboard cut-outs come to life. It’s just, after so long of only seeing them in pictures it’s hard to re-assemble them in his head as actual people.

Steve’s mother is the perfect regal, Suburban middle-class woman: tall and stylish and short-haired. That’s all there is to it.

But she smells like a meadow, wears heels even though it's the afternoon, and kisses Steve’s cheek the first time she sees him after a whole summer, like they’re colleagues and not mother-and-son.

Billy knows this because he’s there.

Steve had wanted Billy with him, for reasons Billy is yet to fathom. Maybe for the moral support. Maybe for Steve’s parents to get used to the fact that Billy’s here now, apparently, and they’re going to have to get used to it.

Billy’s sure they’ll learn that in time. As in, the rest of the time they’ve got here on Earth. Because Billy’s not leaving unless Steve kicks his ass out the door. Even then, Billy would probably just set up camp outside his house until Steve took pity on him and took him back.

Steve’s dad is a little different. Not much. He claps Steve on the back and smiles, stiff and unfamiliar. But his eyes look wary, as if he knows the distance between them.

“How was your summer?”

Steve shrugs. For some odd reason, Billy is struck with the sudden feeling that they’ve both had this conversation before. That both Steve’s parents have come home after a long summer of holidaying it in the Bahamas or whatever, and they’ve asked Steve how he was, and Steve has shrugged, _sure, it was fine, I ate alone and slept along and threw a couple parties and went to a couple parties and it was okay._

Not for the first time, Billy is burningly angry that he never met Steve sooner. That he was never _here_ for Steve.

“It was okay.” Steve says, like Billy knew he would. “Scoops is fun. This is Billy, by the way.” Steve turns and gestures, his eyes growing a little warmer when he looks at Billy. It sounds like total bullshit, but Billy swears it fucking happens. He's literally _watching_.

Billy holds up a hand in a wave, does his best American Poster Boy smile. He knows Steve doesn’t care, but they’re still Steve’s parents. They still made Steve Harrington. So Billy if wants them to love him, what’s up with that?

“He’s been staying over some nights a week.” Steve explains. “Just in one of the guest rooms.”

“Oh?” Steve’s mum raises a perfectly plucked eyebrow, turns to give Billy a once-over.

“Just while it’s no inconvenience, of course.” Billy hastens to add. “It was more to help with the clean-up, you know, after the parties.”

Steve’s parents both turn to him fully, interest piqued.

Steve smiles a little, mouths _‘parties?’_

Billy ignores him. “You know the mess some people leave, it’s terrible.” He shakes his head, purses his mouth. “Especially in such a lovely house. I only offered to stay behind some nights and clear the worst of it. Felt like a two-man job to me.”

“That was so kind of you.” Steve’s mum smiles, looks at Steve with an appreciative glance.

“Really, it’s the least I could do.” Billy smiles back. “Steve’s been so great with my little sister Max. Whenever I’m caught up with work he’s always there to help out, drop her off and pick her up places.”

That part is true, of course. It’s one of the reasons Billy fell in love with Steve. Among too many.

“Really?” Now Steve’s mum tilts her head, confused.

“Why were you doing that?” Steve’s dad asks.

Oh jeez.

Billy forgot to give a logical reason.

Seems like his brain can’t lie when he’s talking about Steve.

“She hangs out with Nance’s little brother Mike. I just take them to the arcade and things, whenever I’m free.” Steve rubs the back of his neck. “It’s not a hassle or anything.”

“Oh right, that’s nice.” Steve’s mum’s face brightens right up at the mention of Wheeler, and doesn’t that just give Billy a lovely little twist of jealousy in his gut.

“You still talking to Nancy and her family?” His dad asks, smiling wide.

“A bit, yeah.” Steve smiles back. It’s strained from Billy’s point of view.

Billy just really wishes it was normal that they were together. Really wishes that Steve could just introduce Billy as his new boyfriend and not some weird, super-eager pal that stays over and introduces himself the minute that Steve’s parents are home.

Wishes that Steve’s parents knew that this is awkward and difficult for Billy as well, to listen to them talk about Steve’s ex-girlfriend and her family like this. To feel like this unwelcome outsider when he’s meant to be being made welcome into their home.

Just fucking wishes that Steve’s parents were being introduced to Billy as this new part of Steve’s life, this new addition to their son that’s here to goddamn stay.

Steve catches Billy’s eye and Billy sees the same feeling reflected there, sees an answering pain.

He wants to reach out, to touch Steve in some small way, even a hand on his shoulder.

And Billy’s been repressing that urge since he met Steve. He doesn’t need to do that anymore. He shouldn’t have to do that anymore.

Billy slaps a hand on Steve’s shoulder and draws him close.

“That’s our Steve.” Billy grins wide, glows a little at Steve’s surprised face. “Too nice for his own good.”

Steve laughs, warm and relieved. “I mean, you would say that.” He smiles. “Being nice is practically a language you had to learn.”

Billy elbows Steve. “Hey! I’m nice.” He grinned back at Steve. “To people I like.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Is that so? I don’t remember this when we first met.”

Billy laughs, loud and raucous. He’s about to say, _that’s_ _flirting_ , _baby_ , or _oh_ , _but_ _I_ _didn’t_ _just_ _like_ _you_ , until he remembers that they’re stood in front of Steve’s parents and they better wrap this up otherwise it’s about to become real obvious real fast.

“What can I say?” He smiles at Steve’s parents, tries to include them a little. “I take a while to warm to people. But once I do, I’m there to stay.”

He turns to Steve when he says this. It’s probably the closest to declaring his intentions in front of Steve’s parents that he’ll ever get.

Steve knows: Billy sees it in his face.

“Do you need help unpacking?” Steve slides out of Billy’s arm and goes for a case. “Me and Billy can do it while you guys relax.”

“See?” Steve’s dad says. “Employment did a wonder of good. Already learning manners.”

Steve didn't need manners, just an incentive to care. If they'd ever goddamn gave him one.

Steve smiles his classic, closed-mouth smile and hauls a bag up the stairs.

Billy follows.

As soon as they both reach the landing, Steve sets the case down and grabs Billy.

Billy is two steps ahead, already walking Steve up to the wall and sealing their mouths together.

“You dumb as shit idiot.” Steve hisses against his lips. His hands grip into Billy’s skin, leave indents of his fingers. “I love you so fucking much.”

Billy suppresses his laughter into Steve’s shoulder. “You like that?”

“Billy.” Steve says, serious. “If you ever do anything that hints we’re together in front of my parents, I will literally jump on top of you.”

Billy laughs so loud that Steve slaps a hand over his mouth.

“We’re meant to be unpacking!” Steve hisses.

Billy beams. “Okay, then let’s unpack!” He grabs a case and pulls it into what he knows is Steve’s parent’s room.

His chest is so light it feels empty and full all at once. He’s never been so goddamn happy to unpack. He’s never been so happy.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Andddd .... it's finished!!! 💫✨🙌 My longest fanfic to date, wow. I don't know why everyone let me write so many words. But this was the most fun to write, I've had a total blast, and everyone's comments have been amazing and totally kept me going. It would literally not be finished without them! I've adored this story and I hope you have too. I tried to tie up any and all little loose ends with this chapter, but if there's any questions then don't hesitate to ask away!

Billy’s been dating Steve Harrington for one week, and in that week they’ve spent a maximum of maybe fifteen hours together. Including the day they actually _started_ dating.

He’s dripping wet with his hair flat against his scalp because some stupid thirteen year old slipped again and it’s Billy’s _job_ , it seems, to look after kids at this point. And then when all that is said and done, Billy emerges from the pool sopping wet like a drowned rat, shakes himself out, and comes face-to-face with a very amused Steve sprawled on a sun-lounger.

“The hell are you doing here?” Billy towers over Steve. It comes out a lot more confrontational than he’d have liked, and he’s still working on that, but seriously.

What the hell is Steve doing here?

He doesn’t come to the pool for a solid two months when Billy literally primed himself in front of the mirror for half an hour every morning, and now when Billy is soaked wet and his hair is a state, Steve rocks up all devil may care.

Billy will repeat: his hair is a state.

“I thought I’d come see you.” Steve answers, eyes crinkled.

“Why?” Billy asks, crosses his arms over his chest and shifts his weight from foot to foot. “I’m coming over tonight, right?”

Steve makes a face. “About that …”

“Again.” Billy says, flat.

Steve sits up from his position on the lounger, spread his thighs so they bracket Billy’s knees without touching them. Billy feels hot all over, wants to crawl into Steve’s lap and wrap him up in both arms, hasn’t seen him for _two days_ and they only just got together last week.

Billy is now seeing _less_ of Steve since he became his boyfriend.

He can feel the heat of Steve’s thighs like a physical touch, the slightest brush of coarse hair. But it’s Steve’s expression that catches in his chest and makes him feel open and on display.

“Billy, it’s all my Dad’s stupid business associates getting drunk and talking shit.” Steve looks up with those wide Bambi eyes. “He just makes me sit there, pour them whiskey, and listen to their crap because it’s somehow useful for my future to make connections or some bullshit. It’s not as if I like it either. I would one hundred percent rather be with you. In any given situation.”

Billy huffs, tosses some wet hair out his face. “Now you’re just tryna’ wriggle out of it.”

“Maybe.” Steve smiles up at him, impish and small. “Is it working?”

“No.” It is, actually. Sadly.

“I mean.” Steve looks up at him under a tuft of hair. “I could always come to yours?”

“No.” Something tightens around Billy’s throat like a fist. “No, it’s fine.”

Steve sighs. “Billy, honestly, you remember I’ve been to your house –”

“What? _When?”_

“When you found the Demogorgon, remember?” Steve tilts his head, blinks owlishly.

“Oh.” Billy relaxes.

Steve was never actually _inside_ his house.

Steve frowns harder. “Why don’t you want me to come to your house?” He looks vulnerable, and Billy knows in Steve’s shoes he’d feel the same.

“Because my parents are assholes.” Billy states, blunt and to the point. “I don’t even see them as parents. And I’m not letting them treat you like shit.”

Steve studies Billy’s face.

Billy shifts on the spot, strums his fingers where they rest on his bicep.

“Is that the only reason?” Steve asks.

“Why would I lie about having shitty parents?” Billy scrunches up his nose.

“Because I have shitty parents too, Billy, but I’ve still let you come inside my house.” Steve says.

“You don’t have my parents.” Billy laughs, dark and humourless.

Steve’s face twists, confused. “What does that mean?”

“Forget it.” Billy waves a hand. “It’s whatever. See you around.” He stalks off to the lifeguard seat.

“Billy!” Steve tries, but Billy’s already halfway there. When he finally sits down, he looks over to the loungers and Steve is gone.

So that was one of the times throughout the week. Went great.

Billy goes home afterwards: cooks everyone dinner and cleans the dishes and feels as if there’s a bag of worms in his stomach. He ignores it because it’s whatever, it’s Steve’s fault they aren’t seeing each other tonight.

Why should Billy feel guilty? He shouldn’t feel guilty.

But he does feel guilty. So goddamn guilty its eating away at him.

He goes to bed early but doesn’t intend to sleep, just smokes and sulks until his walkie-talkie crackles a little.

Billy whips his head, scrambles out of bed to get it.

It crackles again, and then: “Billy?”

“Hey.” Billy says instantly.

“Hey.” Steve replies, quick and relieved. “I’m sorry –”

“I’m sorry –” Billy starts, but Steve just talks right over the top of him until Billy remembers that this is walkie-talkie, not a real conversation.

“– about what happened at the pool, it was stupid and if you don’t want me there, I don’t mind, it’s not my choice.”

Billy presses the button so fast it hurts his thumb. “Steve I’m sorry too, I was being a goddamn idiot.” He ends it just as quick in order to hear Steve’s response, to resolve this as fast as possible.

“This is stupid.” Steve sighs. “It’s so fucking stupid. I wish you were here.” Steve cuts off abruptly too: just as desperate to hear Billy as Billy is to hear him, it seems.

“Me too.” Billy says. “I wish you could come over, I do Steve, it’s just.” He takes a breath. It’ll have to happen eventually. “My dad.” He swallows: it gets stuck in his throat. “He’s – not good with guests.” Billy settles on lamely. “If you come over, we can just say we’re studying and stay up in my room.”

“Okay.” Steve agrees quickly. “Sure.”

“We’d have to wait till we’re back at school.” Billy carries on. “For it to make sense.”

“…. Sure.” Steve says, sounding wary now. “Wouldn’t he just believe that you were actually studying though?”

Billy bites back any bitter laughter. “No.” He says. “He’s strict like that. Everything is by the book.”

“Sounds it.” Steve blows out a breath. “I hope he likes me, at least.”

 _I hope he doesn’t_ , Billy thinks _. I really fucking hope he doesn’t._

*

It’s the first day of school after summer and Billy needs to look good. Great. Fucking awesome.

He’s dressed in his best shirt, the one he usually reserves for parties, his tightest pair of Levi’s, and his sharpest leather jacket. He has two, and the one he’s wearing today is his spotless, barely worn one. He takes half an hour on his hair, which somehow naturally curls without much persuasion needed as if it knows Billy needs it to bring its A-game today.

Billy wants Steve to nearly _faint_.

He smiles when Max looks at him, and she pauses mid-bite on her toast.

“You look like you’re going to a party.” Max states.

Billy stops. “Is it too much?”

Max waves a dismissive hand. “Nah, it’s you. If you weren’t already dating Steve, I’d say it’ll totally impress him. So who’s it all for?”

“I mean … It _is,_ for Ste …” Billy trails off, embarrassed and red-faced.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” Billy grabs the pre-packed lunch he made at 6am before he started getting ready. “Are you coming or what?”

Max scrambles up, and they head out.

He rolls up in the Camaro and steps out onto Hawkins High with a grin, anticipation coiled tight in his gut. He can’t wait to see Steve’s face. He can’t wait to see _Steve_.

He walks through the crowds toward his locker, feels eyes on the back of his neck and shoulders as he wades past with a smirk, sees girls pass their eyes over his body, sees guys blink twice and do a double-take.

He’s got the whole school like putty in his hands, and once Steve sees, once Steve actually _sees_ –

Billy is almost at his locker until he catches sight of a familiar mop of brown hair and an even more familiar cashmere sweater Billy’s wanted balled up in both hands for the past year.

Billy makes a beeline for Steve Harrington, whose head is buried in his own locker as he rummages around his books to find something.

Billy puts a hand on the lockers, leans against it, and cocks a hip. “Hey, Pretty Boy.”

Steve whips his head out his locker with the biggest, dopiest grin on his face. “Billy!”

As if he hasn’t seen Billy in years. It’s been like _three days_ since the pool. Seriously.

Not like biggest, bat-shit crazy grin isn’t also spreading across Billy’s whole face as well. Not at all.

“Hey.” Billy says, tries not to preen under Steve’s excited gaze.

Steve runs a hand through his hair, fluffs it up a little as if to make it look any better. Like that’s even _possible_. His eyes rove over Billy’s frame before settling on his eyes. “What classes do you have right now?”

“I don’t know and don’t care.” Billy says. “You wanna sit together in all of them?”

“Fuck yes.” Steve grins wide.

Billy laughs, and the sound must be so loud it startles a few people around them. Some kids in freshman year look as if Billy’s just grown a second head.

Billy just gives them a look. They scamper off.

“Might want to watch that thing.” Steve says. “It’s like a weapon.”

Billy tilts his head. “What?”

“Your laugh.” Steve says. “It’s a pretty perfect sound, you know.”

Billy’s head steams like a roasted tomato, but he rolls his eyes and tries to pretend he isn’t flushing harder than a twelve year old.

“Let me see your timetable, see what we have together.” Steve peers down at his pockets as if Billy’s somehow hiding it.

“I don’t have it yet!” Billy grins, holds out two empty palms.

“What? Why not?”

“I’ve not even signed in.” Billy feels his cheeks heat. “I just saw you and wanted to come over.”

Steve blinks, and his expression wipes clean.

“What?” Billy asks, self-consciousness.

Steve grips his sleeve and starts marching toward the Math corridor.

“What? –”

Steve yanks him inside a storage closet, and Billy barely has his footing before Steve’s crowding up in his space, nosing up the side of his neck until hot and eager lips fall on his.

Billy kisses back with everything he has: hunger and missing and everything else spilling out. He runs hands up Steve’s back and fists both in his sweater, the material softer than he’d imagined, more expensive as well probably. He rucks it up to get to Steve’s smooth skin, splays his hands over Steve’s sides as Steve curls his hands around Billy’s jaw, cradling and possessive in one single touch.

“Missed you,” Steve mumbles as he holds his face, “missed you, missed you, missed you.”

Billy gets that familiar feeling in his throat within seconds, a tight hot clenching of oncoming tears.

He pushes away.

Steve blinks, dazed, mouth plump and wet. “Wh –”

Billy breathes. “Sorry.” He swallows, closes his eyes. “It’s just. It happens whenever.” Billy waves a hand to his face, to where wetness is gathering.

He can’t see anything but he still feels Steve’s mouth press against his closed eyelids.

Billy eventually regains composure, takes a breath and swallows around the knotted lump in his throat, blinks a couple times to dispel the tears.

“Have you heard of touch deprivation?” Steve asks, voice soft.

Billy opens his eyes. “Huh?”

“Well, I got a book out in the library after I gave you a massage. It was all about touching, but there was this part about skin hunger and how if you aren’t touched for a while it can have an effect on you. It can make you feel pretty rough, I heard.” Steve holds his gaze. “But I read somewhere massages help. And hugs. Something that prolongs touch.”

Billy stares.

He doesn’t know how Steve managed to guess that Billy’s barely ever touched in his day-to-day life, never mind managed to find a freaking book about it no less. Managed to figure out that since becoming Steve’s friend, Billy’s been touched, patted, squeezed, hugged and held more than he ever has in his entire life.

The girls he dated never seemed to count before: although Billy wanted to want them, wanted to enjoy their touch, it only felt like a performance. An act.

Being with Steve is real and raw and Billy’s own goddamn skin seems to know it, going by the reaction is has whenever Steve touches him.

“Yeah, okay.” Billy says, voice a little croaky. “Sure.”

Steve takes Billy into his arms.

Billy blinks. Steve wraps an arm around his shoulders and the other around his waist, pressing Billy to his whole body.

Billy can feel every little place that they’re touching: thighs, hips, chest. Billy settles his hands on Steve’s shoulders, unsure, but after a brief pause slides them around to hold Steve back.

He feels one of Steve’s hands come up under his leather jacket to splay against the bare skin of his back, and that one touch sinks into Billy, melts through his skin and warms him up from the inside. Billy makes a noise, a soft huffed thing that's totally involuntary. Steve places the side of his face against the side of Billy’s, cheeks resting against one another.

Billy starts to shake. The tremors start in his fingertips and make their way across his shoulders, but Steve holds him all throughout it: rubs his cheek against Billy’s, goes to the other side, nuzzles his nose into Billy’s throat, his shoulder.

There are no words to describe the feeling. It soothes him, calms him, but also fills him with energy and some kind of furious tenderness.

The prickling around his eyes comes again, but it passes faster than it did before: as though the thing that brings it on is also the thing that makes it go away, the poison and antidote at the same time.

And then it’s gone entirely – Billy’s throat opens up from its constricted state, he can swallow normally, his eyes don’t sting. Once he stops repressing everything, once he stops _resisting_ it, he finds it dissipates entirely.

Maybe that’s because Steve is also holding him.

Billy pushes his face into Steve’s own neck and inhales a lungful of that smell. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Steve murmurs.

A bell rings distantly. Billy wonders if it’s the first or second bell, wonders how much trouble he’s going to be in when he rocks up to register for his classes, but couldn’t really care either way.

Steve starts to pull away.

Billy clings on. “Two more seconds.” He says. “I’ll be good in – like, two more seconds.”

“I’m sorry, gorgeous.” Steve kisses the shell of his ear, slides a hand up to cup his face and look into his eyes. “I’d do this forever if I could. But we’ll get in trouble.”

Billy huffs a laugh. “Haven’t called me that in a while.”

“Still mean it.” Steve says. “Meant it all the times I said it, too.”

Billy pulls back to laugh, steps away from Steve’s arms. “I _knew_ you were getting too much satisfaction from that.”

“Yeah?” Steve grins, wicked. “Got a little taste of the power you get.”

“It is a good feeling.” Billy beams. “Telling the truth.”

When they finally make it out the closest, they’re 20 minutes late to class.

It turns out they only have two classes together. English, of course, and Biology by some miracle. They’re also on different days. So Billy will see Steve for a total of 2 hours during the week at school. Including a half an hour lunch. Provided they aren’t able to see each other after school, and going by both their parents situation it seems more and more likely.

Perfect.

He settles into his seat in English, the usual spot right at the back.

He and Steve were placed together by alphabetical order way back at the start of the year. So for an entire year they sat centimetres apart, and Billy practically vibrated out his skin for an hour at Steve Harrington so close, his stupid sweater-vests and his stupid floppy hair right under Billy’s nose, his elbow grazing Billy’s ever so slightly before he pulled it back, his knee brushing Billy’s infrequently enough for it to be random but still frequently enough for it to _feel_ purposeful.

Enough to leave Billy pent-up and tense and ready to _explode_.

Now, though.

Billy settles into his seat in English, one of the last classes before lunch, and waits for Steve to arrive. Taps his foot on the carpet. Strums fingers on the desk. Sighs and leans back, straightens up at someone coming through the door, slumps back down again.

Finally, _finally_ , the class starts to fill up, and lo and behold Steve Harrington graces everybody with his presence.

Billy jerks in his seat, but it’s alright because Steve’s eyes scan the room and then land on Billy as if he’s the greatest discovery known to man. His face lights, his eyes are clear and honest and full of love: full of love for Billy.

“Hi.” Steve breathes as he slides in. “Sorry, got caught up.”

“It’s fine.” Billy grins, and as soon as Steve is seated he pushes his knee over.

Steve grins back and presses against Billy, their forearms aligned, their knees resting alongside each other, their feet touching.

“Hey, I meant to ask.” Billy murmurs, while everyone is still sitting down. “Do you like it?”

Steve blinks, confused. “Do I like what?”

Billy nods down to himself. “How I look?”

Steve leans back and takes stock of him. “You don’t look any different.”

Billy blinks. “Right.” He tries not to look disapointed. 

“You’re hot as the sun all the time.” Steve states. “Did you get a haircut?” He squints his eyes though, as if determining that possibility.

Billy feels his mouth want to smile, but he swallows it down. “No, idiot. You don’t see any difference at all?”

“None at all.” Steve states. “I literally don’t think it’s possible for you to get more attractive.” This he says murmured into Billy’s ear.

Billy clenches his jaw to keep from flushing. “I’m wearing new clothes.” He states. “And my hair is different. And I’m wearing new jewellery. And aftershave.” He says.

“Like I said.” Steve murmurs back. “Totally impossible for you to look any better than you already do. Sorry to break it to you.”

Billy grits his teeth to keep from grinning: Steve isn’t _getting_ it. “Idiot.” Billy huffs, but it come out softer than intended. “Everyone’s been looking at me. And you’re dating me.”

A furrow appears between Steve’s browns: he looks around and catches the gaze of a few girls at the front of the class who are sneaking glances at Billy. The girls quickly look away when he catches them, but they snicker between themselves, whispering with their hands.

“Uh.” Steve states.

“Get it?” Billy grins.

Steve blinks wide, owlish eyes at him. “Not really, no. I don’t really think you’re trying to tell me that I should be jealous?” He tilts his head. “Are you trying to tell me I should be jealous?”

Billy huffs harder. “ _No_. Christ sake, Steve. I wanted – I did all this so you’d.” He grits his teeth. “You know. Be proud.”

Steve stares, wordless.

“Look, I get you’ve only ever dated girls, and you actually liked them when you did, so it must’ve been pretty fun.” He ignores the ashy taste in the roof in his mouth. “And I get that dating a guy probably feels weird and new and kinda … like it’s wrong, maybe. So I just wanted to make it more fun.” Billy shrugs. “I made an effort today, so you’d see everyone drooling and know you’re the only one dating me. And feel, ya ’know, less weird about it all.”

Steve doesn’t reply.

Billy doesn’t look at him.

“Every time I think you can’t get better, you do.” Steve states, simple.

Billy’s head goes so hot it feels a hundred degrees. He quietly steams in his seat, but then a hand runs along Billy’s leg and settles on his knee.

“Nothing about this feels wrong or weird or strange.” Steve murmurs, close to his face. “I’ll keep saying this until you believe it, Billy, but I’ve wanted you since forever. I got over being freaked out ages ago. And I don’t care what other people think about you. It’s not gonna change how I feel. I mean, you _do_ look ridiculously good today. But I just figured that’s because I haven’t seen you in a bit. Plus you look ridiculously good every day.”

Billy allows himself to smile, this time. “In a bit? It’s been three days.”

Steve opens his mouth.

“Harrington! Hargrove! Have you even got your books out?”

Billy blinks, sees the reading and class exercises for today have been written up on the board.

“Sorry Miss!”

They get their books out. Billy turns to the page and starts to read.

“That _is_ a while.” Steve says out the side of his mouth. “When I’m used to seeing you every day.”

Billy has to privately agree. That whole sentence still makes him feel warm, though.

“If I rocked up here with a new outfit and some aftershave on, would it really change how you felt about me?” Steve asks. "Even if everyone was watching?"

Billy realises that no, it wouldn’t. And then he feels silly.

“Forget it, Steve.” Billy huffs.

Steve’s hand tightens on his knee. “No. What I’m trying to say is: it might make some people look at you differently when you’re a little more hot than usual, when you can tell you’ve made an effort, but it won’t make me feel different. Nothing will change this, Billy. Wear what you like, cause I’m always gonna feel–”

“Harrington! Do I need to separate you both?”

“No Miss!” They shout at the same time.

They lapse into a moment of silence.

“I’m always going to feel what I feel for you.”

Billy swallows around a hard lump. “It wasn’t … to make you feel any different, but just to make you –”

“Right! That’s enough boys.”

So this is how Billy finds himself with a clenched jaw, eyes boring into _Lady Macbeth_ , sat beside some guy he doesn’t even know the name of while Steve sits behind him, alongside a girl Billy also doesn’t know the name of.

Even if Steve were in front of him it might be a little better. At least Billy could _look_ at him.

So.

He’s been dating Steve Harrington for a week and a half now, and their time together is only getting smaller.

They regroup on the Court.

“Do you think your Dad would believe you were studying tonight?” Steve asks immediately, when Billy is half-undressed at his bench. “Otherwise my house is still full of rich assholes.”

“Christ, how long is your Dad having a party for?” Billy huffs as he steps out his trousers and pulls his shorts on. The other guys don’t seem to notice them, mainly because their voices are feverish whispers and it could look like they're arguing.

“I don’t know.” Steve’s eyes are focused on his bare chest, and when he looks up his expression is slack, hazy. Billy recognises that look. He _knows_ that look.

“I’ll get you out there.” Billy breathes before he does something stupid.

Steve nods, dumbly.

Only it’s worse. Because Billy and Steve can knock into each other on purpose, can press their backs to each other’s fronts, but it’s not enough now. Billy’s had the real thing, he can’t settle for less anymore. Can’t believe he actually got _off_ of any of this, savoured these moments, when he knows what it’s like to really have Steve now.

It gets him so riled and frustrated that Billy actually starts playing the game seriously, starts shouting insults to the other team just to get them to bite back, calls out a ‘ _That all you can do, baby?”_ To someone, he can’t remember who, it might have been Tommy, and by the end he’s sweating and panting and fucking _frustrated_.

He slams into the locker room and has a three second shower, because he doesn’t want to shower with Steve and have to look at him naked any more than he needs to.

In the end, he throws on this clothes over his still damp skin and catches sight of Steve across the locker room under the showerhead.

He goes to give a wave but Steve isn’t looking, and the longer Billy watches the more Steve doesn’t look over, as if totally unbothered whether or not Billy leaves.

Billy swallows, stung. Right then.

The rest of the day passes mercifully fast, until Billy’s finally settling into the Camaro and waiting on Max.

Only the car door opens and it’s not Max that climbs inside.

Billy turns and finds Steve settling into the passenger seat.

“Oh, Hey –”

“What the fuck, Billy?”

Billy blinks. “What?”

Steve’s face is beet-red, eyes wide, furious. He’s actually _furious_. “I said what the fuck, Billy? The fuck was that?”

“Was what?” Billy’s voice is growing smaller.

“On the Court?” Steve demands. “What the hell?”

“I …” Billy trails off. “I don’t get it.”

“Do I need to spell it out?” Steve asks. “You called Tommy ‘ _pretty boy’_.”

Billy gapes. “What – no I didn’t!”

“So I just imagined that whole thing?” Steve’s practically vibrating, every muscle taut with anger. “I just somehow heard you say that to Tommy?”

Billy reaches out a hand; Steve slaps it away.

“Steve.” Billy says, soft. Fear is winding up his throat. “I really didn’t. I would never.”

“The ‘baby’ was bad enough.” Steve states. “I thought, okay I better tell you that I don’t like that. I _really_ don’t fucking like that. But I draw the line at – fuck, that’s _our_ thing, Billy. That was _our_ thing.” And now Steve turns eyes on Billy. His face is tight, hurt, constricted.

“Steve, Steve, okay.” Billy reaches out and takes Steve’s hand in both of his. Steve barely allows it but Billy holds fast.

“I was a total idiot in there, alright, I was annoyed that I couldn’t show everyone we were together and I wanted to take it out with basketball, I know I shouted a couple stupid insults and I know I threw some baby’s in there. I didn’t think for a second that’s something we do, I was just automatic, but fucking hell I swear on my life I’d never call anyone but you pretty boy. I literally don’t think I _can_. I fucking – shit. Was it when I said, ‘Even pretty boy can toss?’”

Steve finally meets his gaze, mulish. “What?”

“I was talking about you, Steve.” Billy laughs. “Tommy knows I call you that. He can’t fucking _not_ , with how many times I do.”

Steve swallows. “I thought you said. _Even pretty boys can toss_. Meaning him.”

“No.” Billy states.

Steve blows out a breath. “You still called him Baby.”

“No where _near_ how I call you it.”

“But just don’t.” Steve says. “Don’t, okay. Don’t call anyone baby or pretty or sweetheart. I fucking – I thought I was gonna explode in there, Billy. I wanted to rip my hair out, or their hair out, or _your_ hair out.” He sets his jaw, still angry. “Christ.”

Billy swallows. “I’m sorry. I suck at this. I didn’t think. It’s just autopilot to say all that shit. I never meant a fucking word.”

“You better not have.” And Steve turns to him, eyes blazing. “I swear Billy, you better fucking not have. If you have a thing for any one of those guys, even the slightest inclination, I’m out.”

How did Billy fuck up this badly this _soon?_

“Steve.” Billy squeezes Steve’s hand and takes up his other one, doesn’t care who sees at this point. “There’s literally no way in hell. All I want is you. I’d never want – _fuck_.” Billy lets go of Steve’s hand to press a fist into his forehead. He wants to get this right. How does he _word_ this? “It was so stupid to say all that.” He starts again while Steve looks at him, blank-faced. “But I swear, in California nobody would blink. I _swear_ , it’s so ingrained whenever I’m playing I just start spewing it out. I’ll stop now, I’ll never do it again, but that’s the only reason I said it in the first place. You’re the only person, Steve, in my whole life, who I’ve said it to off the court. I never even used to say it in the fucking _locker-room_ till you. You wouldn’t get away with that in Cali. I knew you would be none the wiser, but seriously Steve, Hawkins is kind of dumb as shit because if anyone in Cali said the stuff I say to you, they’d be goddamn castrated. I mean it. That’s why it’s such an _insult_ on court. It’s not meant to be serious, everyone knows it’s not serious. And _I_ was never serious till you.”

Steve holds his gaze, pins him there with it. Billy looks right back and prays Steve reads the honesty in his face.

“I believe you.” Steve says at last.

Billy sags in relief.

“Course I believe you.” Steve huffs, turns away and scrubs at his face. “I just. I saw red, I guess. Sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry.” Billy cuts in.

Steve blows out a breath. “It’s just. With Nancy, I kinda figured something was going on. I mean it was obvious. And yeah, it hurt that she lied to me. It wasn’t about the fact she wanted somebody else. It was that she kept _lying_ to me about it. But when I thought you wanted somebody else, it was like.”

Billy swallows.

Steve shakes his head. “Fuck. It was terrifying. I went crazy. I've never felt like that before.”

“I can imagine.” Billy replies. He doesn’t even want to, actually.

Steve exhales in a gust, throws his head back against the seat, eyes closed. He looks exhausted, as if all the stress and anger drained him.

“I can’t do this any other way but monogamous.” Steve states. “Plain jane, straight up vanilla. Just me and you.”

“Steve.” Billy states. “I’m kinda obsessed –”

There’s a knock on the window.

Steve and Billy look up. The car-park is practically deserted.

Max stands with her arms crossed.

Steve rolls down the window with a sheepish expression.

“Hey, dumbasses.” She says. “I was giving you guys time, but it’s freezing out here.”

“Sorry.” Steve goes to climb out.

Billy catches his arm.

Steve looks back at him with a smile, glances around before he leans over and presses their mouth together.

Billy blinks, stunned, as he pulls away.

“I’ll see you tonight.” Steve says. “I’m coming over, remember?”

Billy stares.

Steve climbs out, gives Max a pat before he saunters off to his car.

Max gets into the passenger seat. “Hey. What was all that about?”

Billy’s throat is tight, terrified. “Nothing.” He starts the car, all the while thinking _shitshitshit._

*

When Billy gets home, he starts on dinner instantly. It’s hard to focus on making it the best meal he’s ever created when every other thought is that Neil will know, he’ll take one look at Steve and _know_.

Neil is lounging around the sofa watching TV with Susan, Max is upstairs, and everything is pretty peaceful. It won’t be so bad. If Billy tells them over dinner, him and Steve can stay upstairs –

Until there’s a knock at the door.

Billy’s heart leaps into his throat. He knows, by some sense, who it is.

Neil’s voice is at the front door, low and confused.

Steve’s follows right after it, bright and chipper and talking a mile and minute.

Billy jumps out into the hallway.

“Oh, there he is!” Steve beams.

“Uh –” Billy starts.

“You didn’t tell me you were having guests.” Neil states. He turns away from Steve to give him a look. It’s a familiar look.

“I – I thought that was tomorrow?” Billy tries, and Steve frowns. “The study session, I thought we said tomorrow.”

Steve tilts his head. “No, I’m –”

“Study session for what?” Neil looks at Billy.

“Just a group project.” Billy lies instantly. “Part of our grade, we need to do it together. I was going to tell you tonight.” His heart is thumping in the base of his throat.

“Right.” Neil steps close.

Billy flinches on instinct.

“Make it tomorrow.” Neil’s voice is low, a command. “None of us were expecting guests tonight, Billy.”

 _We’d stay upstairs_ climbs its way up Billy’s throat, but he swallows it down and nods. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes sir.” Billy keeps his gaze fixed on a point in the wall. Looking at Neil is like looking at a wild animal; somehow it provokes him even more.

Neil moves away from the hallway and back into the living room.

Billy relaxes, breathes out, and meets Steve’s gaze at the doorway.

Steve’s expression is slack, shocked.

When Billy meets his gaze though, something passes between them. Some kind of understanding seems to flow from Billy to Steve, some _knowledge_ seems to work itself into Steve’s mind.

The shock settles into resolve: Steve’s features tighten, his mouth thins into a line, and he takes a step into the house.

Billy steps forward at the exact same time and places a hand on Steve’s chest.

Steve’s heart is hammering.

Billy looks into his eyes and makes a wordless plea. _Please_ , he says wordlessly. _Please, Steve._

Steve stares at him for a beat. And then he turns around and starts walking away.

Billy knows he’ll get in trouble; knows Neil will ask where he went. But he follows Steve.

Steve is walking with determination, long legs eating up the ground. Billy jogs a little to join him, and once he’s keeping pace calls out, “Steve?”

Steve doesn’t answer. Billy doesn’t know where they’re going, doesn’t know what’s even happening, until they’ve made it down the street and Steve walks up to a tree and punches it.

Billy watches as Steve punches it again. And again. And again. And then he keeps punching, one hand holding the tree as the other pummels into it, over and over and over and over –

Billy steps close. “Steve?”

Steve keeps punching.

“Steve –” Billy tries to take Steve’s arm, to grip his wrist, but Steve doesn’t stop. His hand is bloodied and raw, split knuckles connecting with bark harder each time, no matter how much Billy tugs and pulls and _tries_ –

“Steve.” Billy cuts in quick and covers Steve’s fist with an open palm.

Steve pauses.

He moves his hand slowly. The back of Billy’s hand touches the tree gently, hot and wet with Steve’s blood. It smears across Billy’s closed fist before Steve lets his hand fall, defeated.

His gaze is trained on the spot he punched.

Billy takes Steve’s hand and lifts it up with both his own, holds it spread and inspects the damage. “Nothing’s broken.” His voice is soft, quiet. “You’re lucky. The middle knuckle will bruise, probably. It’ll hurt to hold things for a couple weeks.”

Steve looks from his busted-up hand to Billy’s face. His eyes are angry, but they’re full of tears.

Billy reaches up and wipes where he can tell one is about to fall; sure enough it spills onto Steve’s cheek.

“You’re not going back.” Steve speaks for the first time.

“Where would you have be go, pretty boy?” Billy asks, but he smiles. “Foster care isn’t much fun. I tried it.”

“Mine.” Steve says, instantly. And Billy knew that’s what he’d say.

“How do we explain that?” Billy keeps smiling. It’s hard not to, with Steve caring so much right in his face.

“I’ll think of something.”

“I’m not leaving Max in there.” Billy replies, and this time he doesn’t smile. “Once I’m done high-school then I can move out. Neil knows that’s when I’m moving out. But if I just up and leave.” He swallows, shakes his head. “I’m not leaving Max.”

Steve looks at him, considering. “How bad is it?” He asks, and his voice is rough.

Billy looks away, shrugs a shoulder. “It doesn’t get awful. Few smacks here and there, a belt if I’m really –”

“No.” Steve closes his eyes. He looks pale, sick. “No. Billy.” He doesn’t go on. His throat works as he swallows, as if swallowing around something horrible.

Billy is quiet.

“We tell Hopper. He’ll know what to do.”

“A _cop?”_

“I swear. Billy, trust me.” Steve holds his gaze. “Please trust me.”

“Okay.” Billy says.

In the end he watches Steve go before he starts back towards the house. He invents a few explanations, some fail-safes in case those don’t work, but Neil is flicking through the channels unbothered by the time Billy makes it back through the still open door.

Billy gets back to making dinner.

He washes Steve’s blood off his hands first, remembers the first time he did this after that night at the Byers. He watches the murky red swirl down the drain until there’s none left, and his hands are clean.

*

So Steve talks to Hopper. Billy doesn’t know what anyone _says_ , of course, because he’s not there. But then Hopper wants to talk to Billy, so Billy does. He talks and talks and talks: about when it started, how it happens, when it happens, why it happens. The more he shares the lighter he feels, and Hopper listens – doesn’t once interrupt, doesn’t once question.

When Billy is finished, Hopper only wants to know one thing.

“We’re gonna get you out, Billy.” He says. “Are you okay with that?”

Billy thinks about it. He realises yeah, he is.

*

Billy lies in one of Steve’s enormous guest beds while Steve and his parents sleep down the hall and thinks about Max. Thinks about her alone in that rickety bed, in that cramped room, while Billy lives it up over at the Harrington’s.

Thinks about her face when he found out he was leaving. The way all her features eased, the way she smiled wide.

“Come with me.” Billy murmured into the top of her head.

Max just squeezed him and let go. “Mum’s here. And we’ve spoke about leaving. Together.”

The tightness loosened in Billy’s chest. Only a little.

“She’s said this before.” Billy reminds Max.

“She will.” Max assures him. “If you leave, if you get out.” She looks up with hope in her eyes. “She will.”

Billy stares at the wall until light spills onto the carpet and Billy sits up a little to find Steve creeping into his room.

Steve freezes at the doorway, one toe on the floor, eyes wide. Caught.

Billy grins. “What did you think you were gonna do?”

“Sneak in.” Steve whispers. And then he steps onto a section of floor which makes a hilariously dramatic creak.

Billy sits up, grins wider.

Steve makes his way over to Billy’s bed. He sits down at the edge; reaches out and touches Billy’s face.

Billy lies down over Steve’s lap, and Steve’s hand lands in his hair.

“The six AM starts. The chores. The no sleeping.”

Steve doesn’t say it like a question, but Billy nods wordlessly. His curls make a scratching sound on Steve’s bristly legs, bare all for a pair of boxer shorts.

“The anger. The short-fuse.”

Billy nods. His eyes sting.

“The fights?”

Billy nods.

“The parties?”

Billy thinks. He shrugs.

“This?”

Billy looks up, surprised. He shakes his head.

Steve strokes a hand through his hair. Billy closes his eyes, but the stinging threatens to spill over.

Steve strokes a thumb under his eye where tears would fall. Billy opens them, and they’re wet.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just.” Billy starts. “I did everything right. I did everything he asked. I don’t know why he couldn’t.” The heat in Billy’s eyes spill cold on his face. “Love me.”

Steve cradles the side of Billy’s face in a hand, tilts Billy’s face up to meet his gaze. “Look. Look at me.”

Billy does.

“I love you.” Steve states. Simple, sure. “You never had to do anything. You just needed to be you.”

Billy coughs a choked laugh. “Cheesy.”

Steve doesn’t smile. He holds Billy’s gaze, his eyes shining in the darkness. “You never had to do anything.” He repeats. “You’ll never have to do anything.”

Billy turns his face into Steve’s stomach, into the softness of his t-shirt. Steve runs a hand over his trembling shoulders.

“I will always love you, Billy.” Steve continues. “No conditions.”

The wetness makes a damp patch in Steve’s t-shirt, but Steve doesn’t seem to mind: stokes his back and his hair as Billy cries.

*

When they finally make it to Biology, they sit right at the back and do their work silently while their hands are joined under the table.

And so Billy moves into Steve Harrington’s house. Who knew?

Billy still insists on picking Max up and dropping her off. He catches Neil’s gaze some mornings through the curtains of the window, but Billy just stares back, sits and waits silently until she comes out.

The message is clear. Billy hasn’t forgotten about her. He hasn’t left her.

He checks Max from bruises every morning, but she just huffs and subjects herself to it. After a month and a half, Susan and Max leave the Hargrove household.

Billy finally returns that smile of Susan’s.

*

“Not – it’s not _closed_ , not entirely, more sealed off –” Will tries to explain.

“For the time being.” El carries on, snatching a potato chip right from Max’s fingers, who gapes but shoves her playfully with an elbow. “It’s not a threat right now.”

Billy grins at them both. The colour on his little sister’s face doesn't exactly escape his notice. He wonders if that’s how he looked at Steve, and if so can now understand why Max called them both totally obvious.

“But how can we know that?” Lucas asks. He’s shovelling chips straight from the packet, ignoring the nicely laid out selection Steve left on the coffee table. “Is it ever gonna be really safe?”

“Yeah, but more importantly can the Demogorgons be _tamed?”_ Dustin pipes up.

“I don’t think we should asking that.” Mike states. “I think we should ask what kind of effect this is gonna have on Will and El. They’re the only ones that can actually _feel_ the Upside Down.”

“Ah, what’s Hawkins without a couple aliens?” Billy adds with a grin. “Keeps life interesting.”

The faces of six fourteen-year-olds stare at him.

Two hands fall on Billy’s shoulders, but he doesn’t jerk or startle: he knows that touch.

“Is this one causing trouble again?” Steve asks.

“He’s only interjecting with stupid comments about the Upside Down being a good tourist attraction!” Dustin cries.

Steve laughs loud.

“Hey, good word, kiddo.” Billy nods.

“Which one?” Dustin replies, sarcastic.

Billy just smirks wider, because Steve takes hands off his shoulders and comes around to join them.

“Well I think –” Steve begins, but Billy catches him around the waist when he’s close enough and pulls him into his lap.

Steve goes down easily, both hands settling on the arms around his middle, but everyone else in the room groans.

“Come on!” Lucas cries. “Does it need to be every time!”

“Can you guys sit apart for, like, two minutes?”

Billy hooks his chin over Steve’s shoulder and sticks his tongue out around a grin.

“No.” Steve says. “Now what else were we talking about?”

They get back to the topic at hand, but the fact El is so unbothered speaks volumes. Billy catches her eye and she smiles, small, before returning to the conversation.

A little part of Billy suspects that the kids actually enjoy meeting up like this, talking about the Upside Down and going over every strategy, every avenue, every possible way they could handle the situation. A bit like Dungeons and Dragons. Except this is their own very realistic version.

Sure, it would be great if monsters remained out of Hawkins and the town could get back to its little Suburban ways, but Billy suspects it not exactly the _monsters_ everyone is interested when they hold these fortnightly meetings.

It’s been half a year, Steve’s parents are off sunning in the Bahamas once again, the house is free and theirs to do whatever they want with. So of course Steve offered to hold the meeting, but who is anyone kidding: they’ve ordered in pizza, they have movies planned. Everyone even brought their own bag of sweets. Nobody’s truly worried about the Gate opening anymore.

Billy caught Max in his arms and lifted her up in the air when she showed.

“How’s the new place?” He said once he’d set her down.

“Better.” Max grinned. Billy could see it in her fresh face, her clear eyes. “How’s _your_ new place?”

“Okay, I guess.” Billy shrugged, looked around. “Could use a couple improvements.”

Max laughed and shoved his shoulder. “Don’t lie, you love it here.”

“So?” Billy challenged, but he didn’t keep the grin from his face. He didn’t want to.

Steve settles himself more comfortably in Billy’s lap, and Billy gives his sides a little tickle just to make him squirm. Steve makes something suspiciously like a giggle, but everyone pointedly ignores them both.

Billy slept in until twelve today, because it’s a Saturday and he had nothing planned. Absolutely nothing to do. That’s twelve o’clock in the afternoon. Which makes a full ten hour sleep.

He woke up next to a snoring Steve, and while Billy prefers his own space to physically sleep in (and usually has to extricate himself from an unwilling Steve late at night to do so), he still wriggled over to Steve’s side because the double bed is massive and slid under Steve’s sleep-warm arm. Not to sleep, just to doze. Because even when he wakes up he doesn’t need to wake up anymore.

He wakes up when he freaking pleases.

Well rested? It’s a good goddamn look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song I listened to a lot throughout this chapter as it made me think of Billy (there were loads, but this one in particular really struck something in me) was [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hu2RzDjQrQ), and here's [the lyrics](https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/brodyn/You-re-Okay) if anyone wants to make themselves more emosh. Let me know if you listen!
> 
> Thanks endlessly for reading ❤️❤️💖💖♥️♥️


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